


Red Valerian

by dashakay



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-28
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 21:59:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 48,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashakay/pseuds/dashakay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When three lives intersect, a triangle is formed.  A series of interconnected short stories tracing the complicated relationships between Mulder, Scully, and Skinner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red Valerian

He lies in bed waiting for her to come out of the bathroom. It's a pleasurable torture as he hears the water running, and imagines her scrubbing her face, combing out her hair, brushing her teeth.

Finally, she walks across the room with her no-nonsense gait, wearing one of his old basketball t-shirts that nearly hangs down to her knees. Lacy lingerie is nice, but give me a tiny redhead in a ratty t-shirt and I'm set for life, he thinks with a smile.

Sliding across the bed, she flashes him a familiar look that never fails to set his nerves working overtime. What is it that this woman does to me, he muses. Is it the forbidden, that I am her superior? Is it her partner's obvious love for her? Is it the dreamy way she touches me  
with her eyes closed?

\-------

She smiles to see him sitting up in bed, his reading glasses still on, a book in his lap. Another World War Two history, she notices. What is with men and their fascination with war? Still, he lived through a war, came out on the other side alive. He has the right to be fascinated.

His body, God, his body. She knows that she could live to be an old, old woman and never tire of his golden skin, the tight muscles of his arms, even the garish scar on his chest from being shot. It is part of him and she adores it. Her only regret tonight is that she was in the bathroom when he took off his clothes. There is something deeply erotic about the way he slides a crisp white shirt off his body and lays it on the chair.

There will never be enough of this man for her.

It all comes down to stolen moments for them. An hour here, a rare night there. They must necessarily live in the shadows.

If my partner were to know, she thinks, and files the thought away for later. It's not time to think about him. She moves across the bedspread to her man.

\-------

Shutting off the bedside light, he moves closer to her. He can smell her almond soap. It is the only thing of hers she keeps at his place, the only memento he has of hers when he is alone. Sometimes when she is not there, he stands under the running water of the shower and smells her soap, the scent of her warm skin filling his mind.

He touches her fine hair. Red Valerian, he thinks as his fingers move through the threads. Is Red Valerian a plant or a flower? He has no clue, but he knows that she is a flower. She opens and closes for him. Closed, professional, brisk in the confines of the office. Nary a stray glance from her as she sits across the desk from him next to her partner. Her younger, handsome partner, he thinks and is immediately ashamed for the thought. Who has this rare flower in his bed tonight?

\-------  
Like a blind woman, she closes her eyes and gently touches his face with her fingertips. The rough stubble of his jaw line, the tender flesh of his eyelids. Her hands run over the smoothness of his scalp, satin under her fingers. He moans and captures her index finger in his mouth, drawing it in to her second joint. Oh, the heat of his mouth, the wetness.

Finally, she gives into the temptation and instinctively reaches for his mouth. Every time she kisses him it is a surprise, a new discovery. They melt into one another in the space of a single kiss. The barriers, the walls are shattered with their lips and tongues meeting.

\--------  
Her mouth travels a slow journey down his torso and he shivers in the air-conditioned room. Grasping her head, he pulls her up to look at him. It's difficult to say and he can only manage the beginning. "Could you ever?" he asks in a quiet voice. He already knows that she won't say anything. She never does.

\--------  
She knows what he is trying to ask, but she doesn't know the answer.

Instead of answering his question, she lowers her head again and continues her slow worship of his lean torso. Below his white jockey shorts she can see the bulge and strain of his erection and she smiles at what is waiting for her behind the cotton. "Is that mine?" she asks, her hand running across the fabric.

"It will always belong to you." He gasps and pushes himself into her waiting hand.

With care and precision, she peels the shorts from his body and smiles to see his arousal. It never fails to amaze her that he wants her so badly, that he wanted her all this time. A master of many disguises, he never let the slightest hint slip until one late night in a hotel in Arkansas and then it all came out at in one blazing instant.

"Touch me," he says in the dark. His voice is as low and thick as molasses, yet never as sticky sweet as the dark brown liquid. She loves that voice.

But does she love him?

She doesn't know.

What they have is enough for right now. It has to be enough.

\----------  
Pleasure thrills up his spine as her lips surround him, bathing him with the wetness of her talented mouth. The street lamplight trickling in through the half-closed blinds allows him just enough illumination to see the copper of her hair as she crouches over him, moving.

Mine, mine, mine, he thinks as his arousal wraps around him in waves.

But they are living on borrowed time, he muses. It may be days, weeks, months, but this woman will leave him. He knows this like he knows his own name.

He's prepared. He'll live. And in time, he may love again. A secret optimist, he has to hope for that.

He knows all too well for whom she will leave him. She has been promised to another. But until then, she is here in his bed, her mouth stroking his cock, his hands on her silken shoulders, guiding her. Live in the moment, he reminds himself. Live for this night.

\----------

Pulling her mouth away from him, she tosses her head. "Your turn," she says, and licks her lips. She knows all too well what that does to him and what he'll do for her.

His fingers creep down her body until they find her soft thatch of hair. She can't help but groan as his fingers slowly circle her clitoris. Yes, that's it, she thinks. He knows her well after all these months, knows just how to ignite her.

She wonders if he realizes how difficult it is to sit in meetings with him, her partner by her side. Sometimes he'll stand up and take his jacket off and a low whining noise enters her mind. No, don't do that, she'll inwardly scream, the sight of his muscular arms in shirtsleeves making her instantly wet. She's had to make more than one trip to the ladies room for relief after one of those meetings. And then she has to go back to the office and try to not look at her partner. God, she detests having to lie by omission.

Destiny is a funny thing, she thinks, as his tongue traces her inner folds. This man is not her destiny, she realizes. She senses something else waiting for her, but she doesn't know what it is. She can't think clearly anymore as his mouth sends her spiraling to the brink of fruition. His long, thick fingers moving in and out of her, she comes with a strangled cry and arches her back.

\----------

This woman, his love, even tastes like a flower. Sweet and fragrant. He is almost disappointed her orgasm came so quickly and ended his silent worship of her body. Sometimes he just wants to barrel into her office and bury his head in her lap, part her legs and lose himself in the honeyed depths of her. But she is never alone. The other is always there.

She sighs with delight and reaches for his penis. "Don't make me beg." She laughs and he laughs with her, loving her lightness in bed. Their lives outside the bedroom are intense enough.

A small woman, he is always afraid he'll hurt her when he is on top, but his lover is a woman of hidden strength. Her legs reach around and grip his back and he grits his teeth as he enters her. It's so good he has to suppress the urge to cry out. He's not demonstrative like that but he is aware she knows how pleased he is.

He wants to devour her, to have his mouth on every part of her fragrant skin, but he is satisfied to taste her peppermint flavored mouth, to feel her tongue entering his mouth, to stroke her hardened nipples. Control, he thinks, keep yourself in control, but it's too late. The pace of his thrusting quickens and she seems to become deeper, tighter, wetter for him. With a low gasp he spills over and for a moment the ecstasy threatens to completely take over, he's afraid he may black out from such pleasure.

\----------

Their bodies reluctantly separate. Her legs hum with afterglow, and she can feel the blush spread on her cheeks and chest. She smiles as he traces her arm with his finger.

He loves her, she knows this.

She desperately wishes she could return the favor.

Let this be enough, she silently entreats him, gripping his hand in her own, her mouth moving against his damp chest. Just let this be enough.

Soon, he falls asleep.

After a while, so does she, wrapped in the heat and strength of his arms.

\--------------

As the sun rises, he opens his eyes and watches his crumpled flower sleeping, her skin rosy in the morning light.

It isn't enough, he thinks. He wants everything, all at once.

Sighing, he rolls over and tries to go back to sleep.


	2. Morning, Excellent and Fair

_"When I awoke it was early morning. I lay looking up at the blue-green sky with its translucent shawl of mist; like a tiny orb of crystal, solitary and serene, Venus shone through the haze above the quiet ocean..._

This was not judgment day--only morning. Morning: excellent and fair."

William Styron

Skinner has a favorite theory, one he is thinking about as he parks the car in the lot at Safeway: a man rarely knows when his life is about to change. He doesn't really know why he's thinking about this. It just popped into his head as he backed into the space between two hulking minivans.

He didn't know, as he stood in line at the downtown Minneapolis branch of First Bank, that he would meet his future wife. He had no idea that they would have a wedding with two hundred guests, that they would buy and sell houses together, that he would wake up by her side for so many nights and end it one winter day in a lawyer's office. No, he stood and rocked impatiently from foot to foot and noticed that the woman standing behind him in the camel hair coat had a lovely smile.

And the night he slunk into the hotel bar for a solitary drink, he didn't know that the chatty, pretty blonde who sat beside him was a set-up. As he plunged into her accommodating depths, he'd thought that night was a rare moment of pleasure in his life. He didn't know that everything would change when he found her lying next to him with her neck cruelly twisted.

Skinner certainly didn't know as he flew into Little Rock to deal with a Bureau mess that he and Dana Scully would become lovers that very night. It never even entered his mind as he took the elevator to her hotel room and knocked on her door.

He didn't know that he'd wake the next morning a man transformed, a man utterly in love with a woman he could not have.

He hadn't a clue that he could become an entirely different person just by the simple act of love.

Now he strides into the supermarket with its fresh bread and waxed fruit smell, grabs a cart and tackles the complexities of the produce section, all because of a two sentence email he received in his personal account this morning.

It had said: "My place tonight? If you cook, I'll do the dishes."

His answer had been equally brief. "Seven o'clock."

He'd been warmed by the domesticity of her email. It sounded so normal, as if they were in the habit of meeting after work and sharing cozy meals together. As if nearly every night they went to bed together and rose and began the new day in each other's company.

The truth is, Skinner thinks as he squeezes a mango to see if it's ripe, he can count on his hands the number of full nights they've spent together over the last eight months.

But tonight is one of them and he shivers from the over-enthusiastic air conditioning and anticipation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She gets her apartment ready for his arrival. New flowers, this time simple daisies in the vase. The sheets are stripped off the bed and new ones put on-- pale blue with tiny white flecks. Feeling like a thief, she turns the ringer off the phone.

It's safe, it's safe tonight, she thinks. Her partner is in New York, giving a speech at a conference.

And then she looks into the mirror and decides she's tired of having to lie, if only by omission. She's never been a talented or enthusiastic liar.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scully knows that he loves to cook and is much more skilled at it than she is. Tonight he's finally going to make paella, a long and rather complicated procedure he learned on his honeymoon.

He and Sharon stayed for five days in a village in Spain called Asuncion. Their guesthouse was a charmingly shabby place owned by a young couple named Jose and Pilar Garcia. Sharon and Walter spent those days taking long walks through the cobblestone streets of the town, drinking a lot of wine at vineyard tastings and listening to the rusty springs of their bed squeak as they made newlywed love.

One night their hosts invited them for paella. In the courtyard of the house, they sipped sherry and listened attentively as Jose explained the ground rules for making paella. One, a true paella should always be made by a man and made outside on a fire of vine cuttings. Two, paella should contain twelve sprigs of rosemary or two snails. He and Sharon had looked at each other in confusion until Pilar gently explained in her halting English that in their part of Spain the snails used in paella were fed rosemary and thus infused the rice with the flavor of the herb. The third rule was that Valencian paella doesn't contain seafood, but rabbit and chicken.

Skinner smiles a little at this memory. There is no rabbit at Safeway, of course, and there's no way he'll be able to cook his paella outdoors, since Scully has no yard. Luckily Pilar had given him a recipe for a simpler, if less authentic, seafood paella that she swore was as delicious as her husband's stringently genuine dish. When they returned to the States, he and Sharon had made the recipe and found it wonderful. Whenever they wanted to remember the little joys of their honeymoon, they'd gotten out the big soup kettle and made paella.

And now he wants to share this with Scully.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As she tidies up the living room, she finds something shoved between the couch cushions and the back of the couch. She pulls it out and sees it's a navy blue sweatshirt. It's Mulder's shirt. He must have pulled it off in the middle of the night as they slept on her couch last night. She carefully folds the shirt and tucks it on the top shelf of the hall closet, resisting the urge to sniff the sweatshirt. Besides, she doesn't need to. She knows Mulder's smell.

Rental cars, interrogation rooms, fast-food restaurants, sterile hospital rooms, crowded airplanes. She's always surrounded by his scent.

But not tonight. Tonight is for Skinner.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The seafood is looking awfully suspect in the big glass supermarket case, so Skinner decides to stop at Coastal Seafood on the way to Scully's.

Skinner feels out of place, pushing his cart down the aisles of the store, surrounded by young mothers with babies in their carts. The sound system is playing soporific Muzak and he tries not to hear the saccharine version of "The Impossible Dream."

As he reaches for a box of Arborio rice, he isn't really concentrating on the task at hand. He's on autopilot, thinking of the night ahead.

His time with Scully is always borrowed or stolen. He'd be out on his ass if the Director of the Bureau knew how many times he's left the building, ostensibly to attend a meeting, to drive to some out of the way motel or hotel to spend a few hours with his woman. A few, blessed nights have been spent together in his apartment. And one night, semi-drunk after Darlene Simons' wedding, he'd followed Scully to her place and appeared on her doorstep. She'd blinked at him in surprise and gently reminded him why it wasn't wise for them to be together at her apartment, but then had taken him in and into her bed. Before it was light, he'd stolen out of her place and driven home, repeating to himself all the reasons why he shouldn't be involved with one of the agents under his charge.

Although he's wanted to, he's never dared asked her to transfer. He knows how committed she is to the X-Files. But it doesn't stop him from fantasizing about how it would be if she did and they could be together like every other couple in the world.

And being in the supermarket, filling his shopping cart while little kids whine for cookies, doesn't stop him from fantasizing about how it will be tonight with Scully.

He wonders how she'll be tonight. Will he get the soft, loving Scully with her gentle hands and slow, underwater kisses? Or will she be wild and hot, writhing on the sheets and begging for his cock?

For a moment he allows himself to imagine how it would be if they could go somewhere in public. They're at a roadhouse out in the country, smoky and dirty and blasting something by the Stones. Maybe the grinding, slow haze of "Angie." And Scully is seriously out of character tonight, wearing tight jeans and a little red blouse tied around her waist, which offers enticing glimpses of her indrawn navel and her cleavage when she bends down to make a shot at the pool table. Her lips are red and swollen, the lipstick slightly smeared from kissing and drinking. She gyrates her slender hips to the beat of the music and lifts her eyebrow at him as she drinks a shot of whiskey. He can't stand it any longer. He takes her by the arm and hustles her out the door and into the cool night air and they go to the parking lot. Against the car he presses her, snaking his tongue into the depths of her alcohol-saturated mouth and she scrabbles for the fly of his jeans. He's so hard, so hard he can't stand it and he gasps as his cock is freed. Skinner lifts her, God, she's so light, onto the hood of the car and fumbles her jeans off her. Anyone could see them, shit, they could be arrested, but he's not thinking now as he sinks into her amazing heat. "You're mine," he growls in her ear and she looks up at him with eyes shining in the light from the full moon above and nods. She's his, she's his.

With great embarrassment, Skinner finds himself stranded in the meat department, leaning over his cart and practically panting. An old woman in a shabby housedress gives him a strange look and he straightens up and fixes a businesslike expression on his face. His cock is so hard, just begging  
to be released from his jeans. God, can anyone see it? He wishes it were cool enough to be wearing a long coat, but this is July in Washington D.C., and he's wearing a black t-shirt, which doesn't exactly cover anything conspicuous. With a sigh, he wheels the cart around to the frozen food  
department. Maybe the cold air will do him some good.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She has a hard time dressing tonight. For once she wants to be sexy, wants to be feminine, wants to be soft. Jeans won't do and neither will one of her suits and even her skirts are too tailored and severe. And then she remembers what she has hanging in the back of her closet, the dress she's never had the guts to wear. Tonight she's feeling brave.

And her heart is beating hard and she's not exactly sure if it's anticipation or fear she's feeling.

She knows, even if she can't come right out and admit it to herself, that a decision has to be made, and soon. Skinner's eyes are always searching her face, waiting for her to say something, to make some sort of declaration.

Somehow, she does resent that. He wasn't supposed to fall for her like this.

The truth is that last night changed things. She saw some things in herself, and in Mulder, that she's been unwilling and unable to deal with for a long time.

Last night she saw how the icy layer that had grown between them was melting.

Really, she's beginning to hate herself, just a little bit.

She glances at the clock in the kitchen. He'll be here soon. She craves his touch, needs to spend a few hours in his loving presence. But what does he need? She knows. Yes, she knows. He needs everything.

And she can't give him that, as much as she'd like to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He's humming as he heads up the sidewalk to her building, his arms full of grocery bags. This is so not like him. Walter Skinner does not hum under any circumstances. Perhaps it's a good sign.

Maybe it's the simple fact that for once, Scully reached out to him. He's always the one to take the initiative, to make the plans for them to get together. She nearly always says yes and always seems pleased at the prospect, but it's usually him.

She answers the door while he's still knocking, as if she were waiting right by the door.

He nearly drops the bags when he sees her and what she's wearing.

Only a few times has he ever seen her in a dress. Of course, female FBI agents don't have a lot of occasions to wear dresses. It's not like there's a Bureau Ball or anything. Scully is wearing a sleeveless dark blue dress that looks like cotton. It hangs down nearly to her ankles and hugs her figure, although it isn't tight. She smiles to see him and turns around so they can both go inside. His gasp is repeated as he sees that there is no back to the dress, save six rows of thin strings that tie. Oh my God, will she be offended if he throws the bags to the ground and ravishes her right there in her foyer? He can see the multicolored snake on her back teasing him as it appears and reappears from where the dress begins again at the small of her back.

He's in trouble tonight.

Skinner manages to fumble his way through a greeting and a kiss and gets the perishables in the refrigerator.

"What are you making?" she asks, leaning against the kitchen counter.

"Paella," he says with a dry mouth. He gratefully accepts the beer she offers and takes a deep swig.

"It sounds delicious." Her lips turn up in a smile. "Like the dress?"

"Oh yeah." He's completely incoherent now. "Where did you get it?"

"I know, it's not really me," she says, her face turning a bit pink. Her hair has dried naturally and is falling around her cheeks in gentle waves. "My sister gave it to me for my birthday four years ago. I think it was her way of teasing me that I never wore anything revealing."

"I love it."

And he can't stand it any more, he pulls her to him, his hands find the smooth skin of her back and he begins untying the cotton strands.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's better, she thinks. When she's physically with him she doesn't have to think, doesn't have to suffer over whether she's making a big mistake. Everything is narrowed down to his hands, his rough voice, and the pleasure of his slow, searching kisses.

The dress comes apart in his hands and he finds her breasts with his fingertips and maps out the spots and crevices he knows so well by now. Skinner pushes her out of the kitchen and they fall onto one of her chairs; she's tumbled across his lap.

There will be time for slower sex later. This is about assuaging their fierce need right now. She has to get his pants off him and wrap her fingers around the impossibly thick circumference of his cock.

His pants are around his knees and her panties drape on the armrest of the chair and she kisses him, doesn't dare leave his lips as with one sharp thrust, he's inside her.

Ah, yes, so good.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sweaty and entirely disheveled, they make their way to the bathroom and turn on the shower. His head is still spinning and he can't even remember if he's ever taken a shower with Scully before. But now he is, they're under the warm water and she's soaping his back with her almond-scented soap, still kissing him as if their lovemaking hasn't ended yet.

And it hasn't. He wants more and more and more until they can't stand up any longer.

Skinner washes her everywhere, getting her small body nice and slick. He enjoys the slippery texture of her skin and the way she groans as he finds her still-swollen clitoris with his fingertips. Knees popping, he sinks to the bottom of the tub and plunges his tongue between her drenched curls. She tastes a little soapy and a bit like marzipan as he lets his tongue roam everywhere in her hot folds. Scully hangs onto the shower rod for support and moans continuously until he looks up and watches the ecstasy washing over her face with the shower's spray.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If only every moment of her life could be like this, feeling like she's flying, feeling free of the bonds of the quest that haunts her, the truth that keeps evading Mulder and her. She wouldn't have to think about how she lost a daughter and cannot have another, she wouldn't have to think of her sister bleeding out her life with a bullet that wasn't meant for Melissa.

She doesn't have to be serious, or logical or tortured.

With Skinner, she doesn't have to think about those things. She can escape the mundane and horrifying reality of her life. They talk, they laugh, they eat dinner and make each other feel good. It's limited but beautiful in its way. She doesn't have to think.

But maybe she should, after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, in the kitchen, he is wearing only his shorts and t-shirt and she's cocooned in her blue and white-striped bathrobe and they're veritably glowing radioactive from their lovemaking. As she leans over the counter to chop onions he admires the fine pink luster of her skin. Sometimes she's just too pale. Skinner can remember when she was so damn sick and how her skin had sickening blue-green undertones then. Scully is healthy now, radiant in the summer heat of the kitchen, rosy from his touch.

He takes the shrimp out of the fridge and begins the arduous task of deveining the creatures. Jessye Norman is adding to the Iberian feel of the night by singing Carmen on Scully's stereo and he feels so warm and domestic and cozy. This is how it would be if they lived together, if they had a house in a quiet neighborhood and maybe a dog. And perhaps, perhaps... He allows himself to imagine Scully in bed, his hand trailing over the hard mound of her belly, their child growing inside. Skinner finds he likes that image almost too much. Sharon had never wanted children, had made that fact clear from the very beginning. And he'd agreed with her; he couldn't imagine their life together with children. But he's surprised himself by thinking and dreaming of having those things with Scully.

Maybe it's because he can never have them.

When it gets out of control like this, when he begins dreaming too hard, he has to remind himself of what she'd said the first night they were together.

"I can't promise you anything, Skinner," she'd said.

His knife deftly slides over the underbelliesof the shrimp, ripping out the thin black lines of guts. When he glances over at Scully, who is now sauteing the onions in olive oil, she looks up and gives him a single, penetrating look. Her eyes are large and haunted in her face.

I don't know her at all, he thinks, beginning to sweat all over again. Everything I think I know about Scully is something I've made up in my head. I've made her in my image to be the woman of my dreams.

He knows that he idealizes her, fashions her into his perfect, dream woman. If he steps outside the bounds he can find her humorless at times, logical to the point of being pedantic.

And of course there's her greatest fault, the one that he'll only admit to himself alone and late at night with a drink in his hand. There is only one person in the world Dana Scully truly trusts and it's not him.

He doesn't even want to think about how much he hates that.

Skinner returns to the task in front of him. Tonight isn't the night to plumb the dark reaches of his soul. It has to be enough that he's in her kitchen and his body is still glowing from twining with hers and they're making paella.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She can feel him watching her, even though she's bent over the onions; the little hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise.

And when she turns around she sees the naked adoration on his face.

Oh, you don't know me, she thinks. Skinner, really, you don't.

Of course, that's her fault. Except for the first nights they were together in Little Rock, she's shared very little of herself with him. Maybe some bits and pieces, safe stories of her childhood and funny anecdotes from college and medical school.

But he doesn't know her aches and pains and twinges. As far as she can tell, he doesn't even know she's unable to have children. They stopped using condoms about a month into their affair after they'd both produced clean lab work. He never asked about further birth control and she never told him that none was necessary.

It's unfair. It's unfair and it has to stop. He's been looking forward to the future and she's just spent eight months of one day at a time. She doesn't know how to look into the future with Skinner.

She's startled by the noise of something clattering to the floor. It's the wooden spoon she was holding as she cooked the onions in the pot. Scully bends to the linoleum, thinking, you'll kill him if you let this continue.

"Are you all right?" he asks and she stands back up."I just dropped something."

She wants to and she doesn't want to and she doesn't know what to do.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
Around ten o'clock the paella is finally ready and she spreads a blue blanket on the floor of the living room in front of the fireplace. It's July and so they can't have a fire, to his great regret. Scully switches the CD to the Gipsy Kings and they croon sad guitar ballads about love in hoarse Spanish.

Skinner opens a bottle of Rioja and takes it out the living room where they settle on the blanket with their bowls of yellow saffron rice and seafood.

"This would be considered eating early in Spain," he says, cracking open a clam shell.

She grins. "What a life, living at night. I've never been to Spain before."

He wants to offer to take her, a week or two roaming the countryside in the fall after the masses of tourists have mostly gone home.

Scully is especially opaque tonight. He has a difficult time reading her when they're not in bed, but despite her smiles and pleasant conversation, he senses a storm of sorts brewing in her psyche. This is one of those times when he wants to take her by her shoulders and shake her, shouting, "Talk to me for once, damn you!"

Skinner watches her slender doctor's fingers peel the tail off a shrimp and she offers it to him. Her fingertips are stained deep gold from the saffron. He takes the morsel of shrimp in his mouth and savors the deep, Spanish taste of garlic and olive oil.

I want to know you, he thinks, so he asks: "Who was your first love, Scully?"

She swallows her sip of wine and a strange expression crosses her face, a mixture of bewilderment and amusement. Scully shrugs.

"You don't have an answer to that?" She's in her mid-thirties, surely she's had a first love.

Scully spears a scallop with her fork. "Who was _your_ first love?"

Aha, answering a question with a question. He smiles. "Her name was Stephanie. She was almost the girl next door; she lived across the alley from me and we went to high school together. I even used to carry her books home from school."

"That's so sweet."

"Now, about your first love?"

"Does David Cassidy count?"

Skinner's eyes narrow. "Come on, be serious."

"Do you have an empirical definition of love?"

Does she always have to be the scientist? "No, you just know when it's there. You know."

"I need to have hard and fast definitions of things," she says, setting her plate down on the blanket.

"I've noticed that," Skinner says dryly. "But you've had some serious relationships, right?" Is he asking too much to know these things?

She nods her head. "Of course. I had a number of relationships in college and medical school, but the last really serious one was when I was teaching at Quantico."

"Who was he?" Now he's really asking too much, he fears.

"You might have known him, actually. Jack Willis."

Skinner's mouth opens. "Of course I knew him, I used to play golf with him once in a while."

Scully and Jack. That bit of news goes a long way toward explaining her attraction to Skinner himself. An older man, an authority figure. It tends to add up.

"He was a good man." She smiles. "But it didn't work out."

"Why not?"

"He wanted to get married and I didn't. He wanted me to stay at Quantico where I was safe and I wanted to be out in the field. It was a definite clash of goals."

Skinner muses that it's interesting that he's not the only man in the world who has had protective feelings towards Scully. She's small and seems frail and it's easy to forget just how tough and capable she truly is. But he's seen her out in the field and knows, deep inside, that she's made of steel. It's just hard to remember that when she's in her other context, wrapped in her bathrobe and  
drinking wine on the floor of her living room.

"Have you ever had your heart broken?"

Again, she answers his question with a question. "Have you?"

"Yes. Stephanie. We got engaged before I went to Vietnam and when I returned after my tour, she was pregnant with another man's baby."

Her face goes slack with sympathy and she touches his hand. "I'm really sorry."

"Well, it took a while to get over, but perhaps it was for the best. But back to you, and heartbreak."

"I've been dumped, if that's what you're asking." She pours wine into their glasses.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ethan's face after she returned from Idaho, disappointment and dismay that she'd missed his birthday. And it had been going so well, only six months old as a relationship but she'd wondered if finally she'd found the elusive One.

But she found that he couldn't stand having his attentions interrupted by middle-of-the-night calls from Mulder, couldn't bear to be alone as she flew across the country to chase lights in the sky.

"It just won't work out, Dana," he'd said in the end, picking up his jacket from the couch and rising to leave. "I'm sorry."

She did not cry that night. Instead, she sat cross-legged on the bed, willing herself not to do so.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Dumped isn't the same as having your heart broken, Scully."

Her eyebrows rise. "Well, heartbreak is one of those words that doesn't really have a good definition so I'll just say that I've been dumped and it's hurt."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh God, am I going to have to hurt you tonight?

No, not tonight. I can't. I don't want to have to see your face when I hurt you.

Why can't I make myself love you?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His voice drops to a whisper. "I hate to think of anyone hurting you."

Scully's eyes become wide and maybe it's the light in the room, but they seem to fill with tears. "It's a chance we take when we become involved with someone and let ourselves be vulnerable."

"Is that why you were alone for so long?"

"I don't know why," she says, folding her hands in her lap. He notices how her spine has seemed to stiffen with the question. "I suppose I have the kind of life that doesn't lend itself well to letting anyone in."

Skinner knows she has secrets, things in her mind and her soul that she'll never tell him. Scully and Mulder have seen and done things that he's only been allowed glimpses of. And despite the fact that he's the one who gets to sleep with her, gets to see Scully the woman, he envies Mulder for knowing that side of her.

He wants to ask her if she'll ever truly let him in, but he doesn't dare. He knows where the boundaries are and he won't push them and drive her away.

And that fact makes him resent her. Why do there have to be any boundaries?

He knows she set the parameters on their first night together, but he wants to call a time-out, redefine the rules of the game. The game has changed for him, why can't it for her, too?

"I know how that is. It's one reason why it didn't last with Sharon. I couldn't begin to explain the strangeness of my life to her," he says.

A sad, yet serene, smile grows on her face. "Life has given us certain limits, Skinner. Sad, but true."

"I guess we just have to make the best of it."

She nods and rises to her knees, leaning across the blanket to him. "We do," she says firmly.

For months he's been waiting for the ball to drop, waiting for it to be over and secretly, without even truly admitting it to himself, he's been fighting his own guerrilla war against that day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No, not tonight. As Scarlett O'Hara said, tomorrow is another day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Her kiss is hard and all consuming, her tongue pushing its way into his mouth. He groans at the assault on his senses, and his cock, now recovered from before, twitches in appreciation.

Scully pulls away and licks her lips. "I think we're done with dinner now."

Skinner starts to gather up the plates. "The faster we do the dishes, the faster we can go to bed."

Her hand closes around his wrist, her fingers unable to meet around the circumference. "The dishes can wait."

They both rise and Skinner, seized in a moment of fancy, sweeps her up into his arms like some character from one of the glossy paperbacks in the racks of the supermarket. "Just call me Fabio," he says and she laughs as he carries her off to the bedroom.

He lets her slide down from his arms and onto the bed. Her bathrobe is gaping at her chest, allowing him a fine view of her small breasts, the nipples already hard.

She crooks her finger at him and like the fool he is, he comes running.

This time they have more time to taste and explore. He polishes every inch of her skin he can get to with his fingers and mouth, enjoying the faint smell of saffron and almonds she exudes. He loves how she purrs under his touch, how she breathes warm and heavily against his shoulder as he bends to her breasts and suckles her rosy nipples.

Skinner hears himself cry out when she takes him into the heat of her mouth and slides her tongue with lazy ease up and down the length of him. He bites his bottom lip in a supreme effort not to come. It would feel marvelous to come in her soft mouth but he wants it to last.

Finally, when they're both panting and sweating and so hungry for it that he can hear both of them gritting their teeth, he turns Scully onto her stomach. "Like that," he growls, reduced to caveman speech.

"Like this," she says and gets on her hands and knees.

He gets off the bed onto his shaking legs to admire the view from afar. Sometimes the anticipation is just as good as the having, he thinks. Her back is arched like a cat's, her tattoo gyrating as her ass moves in little circles. Scully spreads her legs further and he sees her pink folds, surrounded by her dark red curls that are wet with her readiness for him.

Oh, he thinks, I am such a goner. His hand trails down his belly and finds his stiff cock, still damp from her mouth.

Scully's head turns and she watches him touch himself at the sight of her and her eyes seem darker than normal.

"Like what you see?" she asks.

"Oh, yeah."

"Good," she says. "Why don't you come here now?"

"Just a minute." He shuts his eyes and imagines how it's going to feel when he slides into her slick pussy.

"I'm waiting..." Laughter is in her voice.

He slides onto the bed behind her. "I'm going to fuck you so hard," he grunts, the words not coming easily. His brain is busy focusing on other things. "I'm going to fuck you until you're absolutely limp in my arms."

Skinner feels the resulting shiver in her body.

His hands go to her hips and he realizes he's grasping them too hard, that he's probably going to bruise her, but he doesn't care. Mine, mine, mine, he thinks as he allows himself to enter her, inch by inch. Even if you don't want to admit it, Scully, even if it scares the shit out of you, you're mine and I'm going to mark you as mine.

Scully gasps as he begins thrusting hard. His fingers go straight to her clit and he strokes her in time to his movements. The bed is shaking with their lovemaking and the headboard makes a brisk thud every time it hits the wall behind it.

Mine, mine, mine, is all he's able to think as his nerve endings dance and sparkle.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It feels good, so good, he's filling her, touching her just how she loves to be touched, but her brain is whizzing with too many thoughts to be able to concentrate.

It's not working, damn, it's not working. Usually she can just blot it all out and just focus on the pleasure he gives her and she gives him.

But right now there's just too much going on, she's thinking about so many things at once.

Ethan, Skinner in Vietnam, Mulder sleeping on my couch, oh yes, again, again, more, poor Jack, dead too young, dropping the spoon on the floor, shit-- I'm going to break his heart, Skinner loves me, I think I love Mulder, I have no idea how Mulder feels, but I've been lying to him for months, this is so fucked up, so fucked up, why can't I love the man who is right for me, I don't want to hurt you, Skinner, this is a fucking mistake, oh that feels so nice, this is so fucked up and it's all my fault, why can't I just make this right?

Is being confused an excuse?

She senses that Skinner is waiting for her, holding himself back until she comes. She almost always comes, she's been blessed that way, especially with him, but it's not going to happen right now. And so, her mouth burning with shame, she moans in the way she knows she does when she's coming and she squeezes her muscles to mimic the rhythmic contractions of her orgasm.

Always lying, she thinks, even through I try to be truthful, it always comes out as a lie.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He sighs with joy, she's coming so hard, little pants and moans from her mouth, and he feels like a god to be able to make her feel like that. He's the one who lets her come out of herself and experience nothing but sheer pleasure.

As soon as her breathing slows, he lets it build until he's wracked by the spasms as he explodes into her, keeping his jaw tightly clenched to keep from making too much noise.

They collapse under the covers and tangle together, kissing and making small appreciative sounds.

He senses she's drifting off to sleep already and he allows himself to sink into it, too.

The sound of her voice surprises him. "You know what I really liked, Skinner?" Her voice is high and slurred with a somnolent meter.

He pulls her closer to him. "What's that?"

"I liked it when you read to me from _Evgeny Onegin._"

"I wish I had it memorized, I'd read some to you right now." Skinner strokes her arm with his fingers.

"That would be nice..." The way her words trail off lets him know she's fallen asleep.

Because she's asleep, he lets himself indulge in something he would never dare do if she were awake.

His voice is low. "I love you, Scully."

The only response he receives is the even cadence of her breathing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His words drag her out of the whirlpool of sleep.

He loves her.

She's known this for a long time, and pretended it wasn't true. What has she done?

She has to work hard to pretend to remain asleep until she's sure he has gone to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It isn't even light yet when he wakes and Skinner doesn't want to know what time it is. He's hard as a rock and Scully is still wrapped in his arms. In the faint gray light leaking in through the window he sees her head tipped back on the pillow, her mouth slightly open, and he wants her again.

Something feels funny to him, slightly off, but he can't quite put his finger on the sensation. Maybe too much of the Rioja last night. Skinner feels something empty and queasy building in his gut.

He hates to wake her but he does by sliding his fingers between her legs, where she's warm and still wet from their lovemaking last night. Scully's eyes remain closed but her lips purse and then open in a soft groan.

"Sorry to wake you," he says.

Her eyes still closed, she chuckles softly.

Skinner drapes her slender leg over his hip and enters her, wanting to shout with the pleasure of it.

Her eyes flutter open, wide and unfocused.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the pleasure's over and he falls asleep, she waits until she's sure he won't wake again and gets out of bed.

She washes up in the bathroom and brushes her teeth. Then she goes to the living room and, trying not to make any noise, gathers up the dishes and takes them to the kitchen.

Oh, he made her paella. She never would have guessed, eight months ago, that Skinner could be such a romantic. He's everything she dreamed of when she was younger, the kind of man her mother would embrace with open arms.

She returns to sit on the living room couch. I will not cry, she thinks.

But on the other hand, she's so tired of not crying.

And she's tired of herself, sick of needing and not needing Skinner, sick of not being able to love him in the way he deserves.

And she's especially tired of pretending that she doesn't love Mulder.

A sob builds in her chest as the finality of it hits her. She loves Mulder, probably always has.

This is going to be so awful, telling Skinner the truth.

It has to be done, though. She wishes she were harder and could simply show Skinner the door and be done with it. But that's not how she is. It's going to hurt him and it'll hurt her, too.

She wipes her face with a tissue from the box on the end table and shakes her head. She didn't mean for it to get like this, didn't want Skinner to fall in love with her. It was like watching a car accident as it happened. She couldn't stop it.

The worst part is that she feels so undeserving of his love.

For a long time she sits on the couch, waiting for him to wake and watching the sky gradually lighten.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Morning, excellent and fair, the sky blue and birds chirping. Skinner opens his eyes and finds she's no longer in bed with him. He stretches his limbs and feels the pleasant sensation of a good night's sleep and a lot of wonderful sex. It's going to be a good day.

He rises and scratches the hair on his chest and finds his shorts on the floor. He hopes Scully has made some coffee.

He finds her in the living room, her back to him as she sits on the couch.

Her shoulders are shaking and for a second, he's sure she's laughing. What can be so funny at this early hour?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She hears his footsteps on the wood floor. He's coming.

Just do it, she tells herself. Just do it, be brave.

I hate this.

I am so, so sorry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She's not laughing.

She's crying.

And in a brilliant, horrifying instant, he knows what's going to happen.

Skinner doesn't know what to say. He's lost his ability for language.

What do you say when the moment of truth finally comes?

Not even ten minutes later, he's fully dressed and walking out the door.

A man never knows when his life is about to change, he thinks, fishing his keys out of the pocket of his jeans. It's so true.

Scully's door shuts behind him with a definitive sound and he walks down the hall and out the front door, into the warm air of another fair morning.

END


	3. Everything But the Girl

Skinner sits back in his chair and turns his head to the window, idly watching the lights of the night traffic below. Removing his glasses, he rubs his eyes, exhausted, but unwilling to get up and drive home.

He doesn't want to go home. Not now.

The executive suite is silent on a Saturday evening, almost eerie in its stillness. Just the faint rumbling of the air-conditioning system and the occasional sound of a phone ringing somewhere off in the distance. The ringer on his own desk phone is turned off.

Reaching into his desk drawer, he pulls out a bottle of Glenfiddich he has secreted there. He isn't one to drink at work, but there are times. Yes, there are times when a stiff drink is necessary. He uncaps the bottle and pours a couple of inches into his coffee mug, takes a long sip, the mellow fire of the Scotch filling his mouth in a strangely comforting way.

Just this morning he woke up to sunshine spilling in through her windows. Such a pretty, feminine room, with its golden walls and framed prints of flowers, the air smelling of her vanilla candles. She wasn't lying next to him, but that didn't concern him. An early riser by nature, she was most likely making coffee or taking one of her long, lazy baths, her body draped in fragrant bubbles.

A smile crossed his face as he remembered the night before. He had come over with bags full of groceries and taught her to make a genuine Valencian paella, something he learned a long time ago on his honeymoon. To fit in with the theme she put on a CD of Jessye Norman's Carmen and they spent hours in her little kitchen, companionably chopping and mixing.

Somewhere around 10:00 the paella was finished and they joked that they were now true Spaniards, eating so late at night. They opened a bottle of Rioja and made a picnic on the living room floor, feeding each other bits of shrimp and clam, laughing at the mess of shells and rice they were making.

And her kiss, he remembered the kiss as she leaned across the plates, her mouth tasting of saffron and wine, her tongue thrusting into his mouth. He acted the part of the romantic hero and swept her up in his arms and carried her off to the bedroom.

She made him feel like a gallant knight.

She brought out a streak of fancy in him he never knew existed.

Skinner climbed out of bed and found his jockey shorts strewn on the floor and slipped them on, along with his t-shirt, not yet feeling comfortable enough to march around her apartment in the nude. Out in the living room, bright with sunshine, he could see her sitting on the couch, her back to him. All he could see were her radiant head of red hair and her bathrobe covered shoulders.

Her shoulders were shaking convulsively. For one wild, hopeful moment Skinner thought she was laughing until it came to him that she was crying.

No, he thought.

Coming up behind her, he touched her shoulder. Startled, she swung her head around and he saw her blue eyes were red and brilliant with tears. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.

He just stood there dumbly, unable to find words.

"I'm sorry," she whispered and a few more tears slid down her cheeks. It was difficult for him to see her cry. She was ordinarily so strong, so in control.

"I can't do this anymore," she said, wiping her face with a balled-up tissue. "It's not enough."

He nodded. This is it, he thought, I knew this day would come.

"It's not you," she sighed and her eyes were full of remorse.

"I know," he said, sitting down next to her and sliding a strand of her satiny hair between his fingers, feeling clumsy and stupid. Why couldn't he have something profound and wonderful to say at this moment?

A long minute passed in silence between them, neither looking at the other. Finally, he gained the courage to ask, "It's him, isn't it?"

Her face was still and she didn't exactly nod, but the slight dip of her pointed chin was enough of an answer.

Reaching out, he placed his large, worn hand over her small, white one. "You love him." It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact.

Again, the merest lowering of her chin in assent.

He stood up heavily, feeling suddenly drained of all energy.

Lowering her face into her hands, she mumbled, "I'm sorry."

Bending down, he kissed the top of her head. If anything, he was going to do his damnedest to be noble about this. "I am, too." He turned and walked into the bedroom to reclaim his clothes.

When he left the bedroom, she was no longer sitting on the couch. He could hear the spray of the shower and her sobs over the running water. It seemed an eternity for him to walk to the front door and even longer for the door to shut behind him with a decisive thud.

Tonight he can't bring himself to hate her, to be angry with her. God knows, he'd love to. It's blessedly simple to act the part of the injured party. He is too aware that he was the interloper in something that has been building for a long time.

He can't hate the other, either, having a strange affection and respect for Mulder. His tenacity in his quest for the truth is something to be truly admired.

It doesn't make it any easier to know these things, though. Doesn't make it hurt any less.

Later that morning he arrived at his own place and spent a long time sitting at the edge of his unmade bed, one of the pillows still dented in the shape of her head. Glinting golden on the white of the pillowcase lay one of her hairs, and he just could not bear to pluck it off and throw it away. She slept here, he thought, she slept here and I loved her.

Finally, he stood up and went to the bathroom. In the shower he found her bar of almond soap. Taking one last sniff, he inhaled the sweet aroma of the soap and then he took it to the kitchen and unceremoniously dumped it in the trash can.

There is a tentative knock at his office door and he looks up, startled and praying it isn't her. He can't face her just yet, although he knows he will have to during the week. Instead, Mulder walks in, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, carrying a thick file.

"I say your light on and I thought I'd bring the Carrey file in while I had the chance," the younger man says.

"Working late, Mulder?" Skinner's heart is beating rapidly.

Mulder ruefully shrugs. "Don't have much of a social life, sir."

He tries his best to laugh. "Neither do I."

Mulder walks over to the desk and sets down the file. "Well, here it is. I have to be going." He turns around to leave the office.

Putting his glasses back on, Skinner calls out, "Agent Mulder."

"Yes, sir?" Skinner suddenly realizes that Mulder doesn't know, has no idea how lucky he is.

"May I offer you a word of personal advice?" He sits up straighter, going into authoritative mode, finding it gives him the courage he needs to say what he is going to say next.

"Of course." Mulder stands there expectantly.

"Love is a rare thing, Mulder. Use it wisely. Stop wasting time." Skinner can't believe he's saying this to him, but those words needed to be said.

Mulder looks confused for a moment, and then realization dawns on his handsome face. "Thank you for the advice, " he says evenly, the tone unreadable.

Skinner sits back in his chair and raises his hand dissmissively to the younger agent. "That's all."

Mulder flashes him an embarrassed grin. "Good night." And then he is gone.

Use it wisely, Skinner thinks.

It is not like him to be so generous. He's a territorial man, used to defending what is his with a fierce passion. But she never belonged to him, he knows. She wasn't an object to be possessed, but entirely her own entity. A choice eventually had to be made, and she made it.

All along he knew who she'd choose.

It doesn't make him love her any less. He respects her for being honest to the end.

The first time they were together it was a surprise to them both. A freezing cold, drizzly winter night in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mulder and Scully out on a terrible case, tracking a murderer of little boys. Skinner had flown out in the late evening, part of a task force there to investigate possible negligence on the part of the field office there, and arrived to find her alone in her hotel room, looking small and lost in her bathrobe.

Her vulnerable image didn't fool him. He knew exactly what that woman was made of.

Mulder had already gone to sleep in his room down the hall and Skinner got slowly drunk with her on bottles of vodka from the room's mini bar. Feeling suddenly possessed with the mad horrible wanting that had lain dormant in him for years, he took the potentially dangerous leap and kissed her. He was surprised to find her responding with equal fervency.

When their fast, blunt lovemaking was over, she rolled onto her side and lightly touched his face with her warm hand. "I can't promise you anything, Skinner," she said, her face grave and young.

He simply replied, "I know."

But her warning didn't stop him from falling into the abyss, did it? He just could not help himself; it was something akin to a reflex action. I live, I breathe, I love Dana Scully.

He wonders if he'll ever cry over this. When was the last time he shed genuine tears?

Finishing up the last dregs of his medicinal slug of Scotch, he gets out of the chair and stretches out his aching back and shoulders. He feels old tonight.

Enough thinking for one night, it's time to go home.

In the back of his mind he pictures Mulder, driving over to her apartment. She opens the door in her blue and white striped bathrobe, looking wan and tired, but she smiles to see his expectant face. Ushering him inside, she sits with him on the couch and they begin to talk in the strange, coded language only they share. Certain things are decided.

He knows this is what will happen tonight.

Locking the door behind him, he starts the long walk down the hall to the elevator.


	4. Cleopatra

She is lying on her back on the floor of the living room, surrounded by candles. There are enough of them lit for it to feel like a vigil, a seance. Perhaps it is.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, she says to herself, trying to obtain some small comfort from the well-worn maxim. She desperately wants to believe some good will come of this.

Through the open windows she hears crickets chirping and cars rumbling past. Off in the distance there is the merest reverberation of thunder, a summer storm brewing in nearby Virginia. The room seems alive with static electricity; when she briefly sits up to change the CD from Mahler to Chopin, her hair crackles as it lifts from the rug. She can feel the charge running up her limbs, setting her on edge. She's on the cusp of something big tonight.

She realizes she's been in her bathrobe all day long, like some addled 1950s housewife zonked on Valium and cheap wine. She's the woman who feels ashamed when she sits down to breakfast, alone at home, anything less than fully dressed for the day. The by-product of a father in the military, she muses.

This is serious, she thinks, her arms stretched over her head. I'm sprawled out on the floor in my robe and slippers, waiting.

Waiting for what? She isn't sure. Some answers, she guesses. Something solid which she can grasp in her hands.

It was so tempting, she understands. The love of a good, honorable man. Skinner is loyal to a fault, a man who clearly comprehends the difference between right and wrong, who not only sees the black and white of a situation, but all the variegated shades of gray that lie between.

A dark night in yet another hotel room, this time in Little Rock. She huddled on the bed, trying to forget the delicate blond curls of the boy she'd autopsied that day. So many bodies, too many innocents lost to the hands of a madman. She'd had enough. Then Skinner came and rescued her in a way.

She hates being rescued; she's her own woman, beholden to no man, but he walked in, bringing into the claustrophobic hotel room his aura of confidence and security and for once she reached out for the safety. The safety of his arms and his mouth. The power he had to make her forget the ugliness she'd witnessed and smile.

Still, for her it was love in black and white. Brilliant, sharply defined emotion, but she wants to love in color. She wants the full palette of lush, bright colors before her. She's been through too much, denied herself too many times, to settle for less.

The night before was wonderful in a way, a comfortable, easy night of making paella in the cozy confines of her home. There was a moment, though, when she glanced over at Skinner, intently deveining jumbo shrimp, and realized the basic unfairness of the situation. He thought they were  
building to something, a fusion of two souls into one, and she was taking it simply one day, one night, at a time. Interesting conversation, an underlying respect and affection, fantastic earth-shattering times together in bed. When she attempted to look forward one year to see their future together, there was only a hazy gray blur before her eyes.

You have to stop this, she thought, and the wooden spoon she was holding dropped to the linoleum floor with a clatter. You'll kill him if you let this continue.

Never did she promise him anything, she reminds herself, trying to rid herself of the sour taste of guilt. She sees Skinner's face fall as she told him it was over, the way his solid body suddenly seemed to slump. It is an image that will always remain with her, chasing her with the other demons.

The living room flashes with white lightning and she sits up in surprise. The storm has arrived. Time to be a woman and face the undeniable truth, strip away the layers of denial shrouding her.

Melissa once jokingly called her Cleopatra, Queen of Denial. She's never been overly comfortable with introspection, with questioning the desires of her own heart. Now is the time to do just that. It's now or never.

She knows what turned the proverbial tide. Two nights ago Mulder came over, bearing a pepperoni pizza, a six-pack of good English ale, and a box full of expense reports they had to tally for a Budget Committee meeting. It had been a long time since he'd been over to her apartment, and she  
furiously cleaned the place to eliminate all traces of Skinner's presence. She turned the ringer off the phone and the volume down on the answering machine. More lying by omission, she darkly thought at the time.

Halfway through the evening, as she and Mulder good-naturedly argued over some missing motel receipts, she noticed they were back to a comfort level they hadn't achieved in nearly a year. She understood that somehow they had gotten past the pain that had eroded the foundation of their friendship and again they were Mulder and Scully, sniping, teasing and flirting like days of old. They even smiled at each other. Relief washed over her skin, relief that once again the tenuous bond between them had returned.

Later, they abandoned the project and popped a copy of _Rear Window_ in her VCR. Lulled by the late hour and the two beers in her system, she fell asleep on the couch next to Mulder. When she woke, she noticed the dazzling hues of the sunset, visible through the open blinds. Her head was  
resting on Mulder's shoulder, their legs touching under the blue crocheted afghan. Gently, so as not to wake him, she disentangled from him and stared at his sleeping form, peaceful for once.

He was the key. Mulder was the reason why she couldn't give herself fully to Skinner. She stifled a gasp at the realization, wondering why she had been unable, unwilling, to see the obvious before her. Skinner wasn't her man, Mulder was. He always had been, in a way.

I don't want this, she thought, muscles tensing. I have the love of a good, kind man who will never hurt me, never let me down.

But can you give him your love? She sighed. She wanted to, she wanted that more than all the riches in the world, more than she wanted the truth, but she realized that wanting something does not necessarily mean it would happen.

All she wanted was for it to be easy. Skinner loving her, she loving Skinner.

She got up off the couch and headed for the bedroom, not daring to look at the man dreaming on her couch. Sliding between her flowered sheets she wondered, now how did my simple life become such a damn soap opera?

The summer storm has arrived in earnest, rain pelting the windowpanes with a steady drumming. The candles flicker in the breeze, casting an eerie effect to the room, shadows dancing on the walls. The tropical scent of rain overpowers the more delicate smell of vanilla and beeswax and she breathes deeply, filling herself with the uniquely heady scent of a thunderstorm.

This is the perfect night to make love, two bodies mingled in the flashes of lightning, rocking together in cadence to the falling rain. She imagines his mouth on her, sliding across her nipples, greedy fingers touching her most secret places. It's so easy to picture, too easy to feel his muscular back under her hands, to smell his skin, to feel the stubble of his cheeks scraping against her own, to taste his tongue in her mouth, faintly sweet.

It's not Skinner she envisions in her bed on this rainy night, it's Mulder. Mulder moving against her, heated skin against skin. Against her, on her, in her. Her gasp as he slides in her and fills her warm center, their mutual cries of pleasure as the pressure builds. Her hands gripping his  
shoulders as he drives into her, the two of them together at last. Making love.

It saddens her to think that she has had sex before, wonderful, passionate sex, but she never has truly made love to a man. She's given her body, and never regretted a moment of it, but never her heart, her soul.

She longs for it.

Does Mulder imagine this, too? Somehow, she knows he does, that he has mapped her body in his mind's eye, imagined the pleasure they would create together.

Her hand slides under the cotton of her bathrobe and she is not surprised to find herself wet. Congratulations, Mulder, she thinks with a smile, you've managed to arouse me from miles away. It doesn't take much effort to climax there on the floor, her own imagination becoming more three-dimensional with each stroke of her fingers. Over the thunder and the chords of Chopin, she comes with a long cry and then her phantom Mulder slips away, leaving her shaken and satisfied on the rug. Alone.

She sits up, feeling strangely ashamed of her fantasy and wondering if Mulder truly wants her as much as she wants him. No, she shakes her head, he does. Now that she finally can see clearly, she knows this to be true. She always did, somehow.

Oh Cleopatra, what have you done?

In the bedroom she washes her face and hands and brushes her teeth. She doesn't want to look at her own face in the mirror. This morning she broke a heart, and she cannot bear to see that woman staring back at her.

Skinner will survive, she tells herself defensively, he's a strong man, full of all sorts of internal resources. It will be difficult, dealing with him on a professional basis, but that's what she gets for sleeping with the boss. They'll get through this, one way or another. They're adults.

And Mulder, what to do about him? She moves back into the living room and lies on the couch, staring at the rainy windows. She doesn't know, but suddenly she feels happy. Happy for finally discovering her own heart. Took you long enough, she hears Melissa tell her. She nods her head. Yes, it certainly did.

A knock at the door startles her. She knows that knock all too well. Gathering her robe around her and trying to smooth her messy hair, she moves toward the door, feeling like she's walking underwater.

She flings the door open and sees Mulder; drops of rain glistening on his trench coat and hair. Swiftly, he moves forward, lunging for her and they are suddenly enmeshed in a kiss so fierce and hard, she wonders if she'll ever catch her breath.

Mulder pulls away and looks intently at her, breathing hard. She can't quite read the expression on his face. "Why didn't you tell me?" he says in a hoarse voice.

She finds it difficult to recover the power of speech after that kiss. "Let's talk," she says, and leads him into her apartment.


	5. Two Voices

Two voices in a dark bedroom, slowly sliding into a sleepy meter.

"Are you tired?"

"No."

"Come closer."

He is lying on his side, fingers lazily counting the bumps of her vertebrae, dazed at the contact. Her closeness. She exhales a small sigh, not one of melancholy or dissatisfaction, but a thoughtful sigh. In the blackness of the night, as rain spatters against the glass of the windows, he smiles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Love is a rare thing, Mulder. Use it wisely. Stop wasting time.

Those words echoed through his mind in a loop, over and over again into infinity. Skinner's deep voice saying the words, the voice he employed when giving a reprimand or an order.

Love is a rare thing.

Traffic was obnoxiously jammed on a Saturday night in the city. Seemingly everyone in the outlying areas had decided on that rainy summer night to come into Georgetown for dinner or a drink, but he wasn't heading there for entertainment.

Use it wisely.

Skinner's face was grave and still as he gave his unsolicited advice to Mulder, eyes inexpressive behind his metal-rimmed glasses. Still, Mulder heard those three short, clipped sentences and immediately knew the whole back-story. He even suspected he know when it had begun, during that terrible time in Little Rock.

Stop wasting time.

Mulder slammed his hand on the steering wheel, cursing under his breath at the driver of the moving truck who was taking his own sweet time pulling out of a parking space.

He attempted to form a mental picture of the two of them, Skinner and Scully, alone together, and found it impossible. He believed it, yes, he knew it to be true now, he just couldn't see it. Denial again, he told himself, and hit the gas as the truck finally moved ahead.

Little Rock. A cold rain fell for eight days straight and everything constantly felt damp and moldy. The hotel's sheets, though freshly laundered, never seemed quite dry, nor did his clothes.

It had been one of the bad days. Scully spent the afternoon performing an autopsy on the latest victim, with blue eyes and blond curls. She walked out of the autopsy bay, wearing her blood-spattered scrubs, looking hollow and defeated. Mulder was leaning against the institutional green wall when she emerged, waiting for her.

Scully stopped and faced him from the other wall. Her head lifted to meet his eyes. "Strangled, beaten and raped, just like the others. Five years old." Turning on her heel, she briskly continued to down the hall to shower and change.

They caught a quick dinner together at a Chinese restaurant near the Holiday Inn, but neither felt much like eating or talking. Words have finally failed us, he thought. We can't even hear each other through the high whine of pain ringing in our ears.

He realized, with a deep ache, that he and Scully had never been so far apart.

I want to give her what she needs, he thought, as he poked at his plate of ginger chicken with the chopsticks. I want to laugh with her, take her dancing, to bring her flowers I swiped from someone else's yard just to see her smile of delight. I want to be able to go home with her and shut the door, leaving the horror behind in the hall for a night.

But I can't. I'm too tired. These days I barely have the strength for myself, let alone her.

Back at the hotel, they paused at her door. "Well, I'm off to bed," she said, not making eye contact, but instead staring over his shoulder at the wall behind.

"Will you be able to sleep tonight?" he asked, remembering equally terrible nights in the past when they attempted to dull the pain with cheesy cable movies and perhaps a beer or two from the mini bar. That was before her cancer, before Emily, before his sister, before the bridge at Skyland Mountain. Before they lost one another to grief.

Scully looked up, suddenly seeming years older than thirty-four. "No, I won't sleep tonight," she said and went into her room, definitively closing the door behind her.

In his own room down the hall, he sat on the edge of the bed and pressed his face into his hands. I've failed her, he thought, she needed my comfort and once again I failed her.

Standing under the sharp needles of the shower, it hit him with finality. I love her, he thought. He wondered why he had been unable to see it before this night. She was on her deathbed, Mulder, he said to himself, her life literally draining out of her body and still you couldn't recognize that elemental fact. Call it my love dyslexia, he thought, I always get it wrong.

Mulder stepped out of the bathroom and wondered he should go to her, attempt to snap out of his own pain and comfort her. No, he sighed, tonight he just didn't have the strength.

He vowed to change everything, starting tomorrow.

Of course, nothing much did change.

Months later, fidgeting in his car, still stuck in traffic, he understood the mistake he made that night in Arkansas. Scully found her comfort; she found a scrap of salvation to which she could cling, just not with him. With Skinner.

Skinner gave him a gift with those words, a slap in the face to bring Mulder around to action, bring him out of his self-induced coma. God, he admires Skinner for that kind of courage and nobility. He didn't have to say those words, to lay himself bare like that.

Scully, what is it about you that brings two grown men to their knees? Is it your clear eyes that still remain innocent and hopeful after all you've seen and done in our company? Your low, musical voice that promises riches we can't even imagine? Your unswerving, dogged loyalty?

He arrived at her apartment and miracle of miracles, found a parking spot down the block. Pulling into the space, he turned of the engine and just sat there, listening to the rain drumming on the roof of the car.

Just one night ago, he sat in the elegant serenity of Scully's apartment, admiring the way she had created for herself a retreat from the chaos of her professional life. There was nothing in the rooms to indicate she was a FBI agent, no files or papers cluttering up her space like his place. When he went home at the end of the day, everything surrounding him reminded him of his quest, of his responsibility to find the truth for Samantha.

He and Scully sat at her dining room table, gnawing on pizza and trying to sort out their expense reports, yet he felt happily removed from the horrors of the journey. The Neville Brothers were singing somewhere in the background and a carefully arranged vase of irises sat on the table, calming him with their appearance of normality, of a life unblemished by darkness. This is my home, he thought, as he reached for another report from the stack. This is where I come to find peace.

The irony that he hadn't been there in months did not escape him.

Scully seemed different that night, stripped of her hard edges, the brittle pain that sometimes seemed to emanate from her body in waves. Face scrubbed free of makeup, her hair in a ponytail, she looked as soft and young as she had the first day she had marched into his office. Mulder looked up at her and smiled and she actually smiled back, teeth and all. He wanted to weep with relief; perhaps things would be right again after all.

Much later, he woke up on her couch, slumped over with his head on the armrest. He felt a weight pressing on his body and found it was Scully, asleep. The intimacy of the moment made his skin tingle. Her head rested on his shoulder and he could smell her clean hair and the faintest whiff of almonds. Perhaps the soap she used?

He had the sudden urge to pick her up and carry her to the bedroom, to lay down with her, not for sex, but just to feel her close. Hear her breathing and feel her back against his chest, rising and falling. Sighing, he realized the impossibility of that course of action. Scully would certainty wake up and kick his sorry, pathetic ass all the way back to Alexandria.

Scully, do you ever wake in the middle of the night and want me, too?

Do you awaken disappointed because it was all merely a dream?

How do you taste, Scully?

Stealthily, he inched his way to a sitting position and moved her so her head flopped down onto the mound of pillows on the other end of the couch. She mumbled a little, but her breathing remained even and deep. After a few agonizing minutes of waiting to see if she'd wake up, he crouched over Scully's sleeping body and ran his index finger along her jawline. She didn't stir.

In the dark of her living room, he stole the kiss he had long dreamed of, but hadn't the courage to give. The merest brush of his lips against hers, tentative and brief. Scully didn't move under his lips, but it was still sweet. Sleeping Beauty, he thought. Does that make me the Handsome Prince? If only it were a fairy tale.

He stretched out his cramped legs and curled up as best as he could on the other end of the couch, falling asleep with a faint smile on his face. It took that little.

It's time to face the music, he thought in the car, and steeled himself for the moment. Mulder stepped outside the car and lifted his face to the rain, letting the water run over him in rivulets. A baptism, he thought, now I am clean. Time for my life to start anew.

With a determined step, he made his way to Scully's building.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two voices in a dark bedroom, passion abated for the moment.

Her voice is soft. "Mulder, I'm sorry."

He pulls his face away from her hair. "Don't be sorry. Don't regret it." He wonders when he became so mature.

"We just, we just need to try to be good to one another," she says. "Stop the games, the one-upmanship, work  
together."

His fingers find the still-hardened tips of her breasts and circle, mind still reeling in amazement, in relief. "I think we work together pretty well."

This prompts a throaty chuckle from her.

He has to ask this question, just once. Once he knows, he can put it behind him. "Scully, did you love him?"

She abruptly rolls over and brings her face close to his. "I wanted to," she pauses for a second, thinking. "I tried so hard to conjure it up, but it just wouldn't come."

"Skinner is a good man," he whispers, flinching a little at the name.

Scully nods her head. "He did a generous thing for you tonight, for us."

"It's so like him." The man once sold his soul to the closest thing to the devil on earth to save Scully. "He loves you, doesn't he?"

She says nothing, but runs her hands though Mulder's hair, eliciting sparks in the darkness, bright flashes of crackling light. We're magnetically charged, he thinks, positive and negative, cleaved together by our opposition. Now that we've gotten so close, nothing can pull us apart.

He's shocked at how hopeful he sounds.

Finally, Scully speaks. "Mulder, the only thing that matters is that I love you."

He smiles at her words. She loves him, figure that one out. It's going to take a lifetime of trying, but he plans on deserving her love.

Slowly this time, they begin again. If the first time they were together was a conflagration of two bodies igniting for the first time, this is a slow, controlled burn. Scully straddles his body and they move together with precise restraint, both sighing in mutual pleasure. This time he is able to be aware of the nuances of their lovemaking, the soft sounds she makes as she takes him into her, the brush of her pubic hair against his, the utter completeness of joining with her.

This, too, is a baptism, a confession. Scully has absolved him of his sins, and he of hers. Now they are truly washed clean and can try to start a new life.

In the darkness of the bedroom, two voices become one as they cry out in joy.


	6. Friction

Body meets body and friction is formed.

It's like opening a long-awaited gift, tearing the wrapping paper aside and flinging the bow on the floor to find the Malibu Barbie with Special Curl Hair. Ah, just what I wanted, Santa. So what if I had to wait so damn long for it? It's here now in my hands and it's time to play.

I'm tired of crying, of sitting alone in the living room, feeling helpless, trapped in the sucking whirlpool of my life. Tired of defeat, of failure, tired of being thirty-four years old and feeling so damn old, so weary by the evil we encounter.

Save me.

No, don't. I can save myself. But stay by my side. Walk with me on this march.

Today is Sunday. Don't want to think about toxicology reports, of secret informants, of budget reports. I don't want to remember that Monday morning we have an 8:00 meeting with Skinner. Can't think about him right now, lying with my head on your bare chest, your hands tangled in my hair.

Today is Sunday. God himself said in the Bible that this is a day of rest. Last night's storm never fully left the area, and a fine drizzle mists the streets outside. No need to go out today, no need to admit that there's a world beyond this little apartment. There's a bed, a refrigerator full of food, a toilet and a shower. What more do we need?

Help me create an island today. You and me, shipwrecked on this bed. Our life raft has deflated and there's no way we can get off this sandy isle, not today. Lie close to me and float in the warm water. I can taste the salt on my lips, and realize it isn't seawater, it's my tears.

God, I promised myself you wouldn't see me cry.

It's just overload, too much of everything at once. My life has been a series of careful, even steps. Look before you leap has been my motto since I was a young girl. In matters of love I have been the empress of judiciousness, choosing wisely, willing to go without if I cannot have the  
best.

Now, take a look at me. I did, about an hour ago, in the glare of the bathroom. My hair a tangled brush of copper thread, my face rosy from razor burn, and oh Lord, was that actually a hickey on my neck? A sudden memory flashed before me of trying to explain to my mother that the purplish bruise was actually a burn from the curling iron. "Just be glad your father is at sea, Dana." Swollen, cracked lips. Have I ever been so utterly, thoroughly kissed?

I looked beautiful. A wild beast-woman, a woman who has had every inch of her skin explored and mapped by her eager cartographer.

Eager, that's what we are. I can't stop now that we've begun this thing. It makes me catch my breath in my throat, fear, fear of going too deep, of losing myself in your tawny skin and melancholy eyes. What if we drown in our combined pain, its blackness washing over us in waves until we are irrevocably pushed down to the bottom, far below?

It's all about control, isn't it? It's hard for me to let go, to just take each moment in my hand and savor it, roll the moment on my tongue like a fine Bordeaux. My brain is always just going, going, thinking too much, trying to achieve goals, trying to see the pattern. Help me let go of my control

I have to stop this incessant thinking. You're here, sprawled naked on my bed in all your masculine beauty. Yes, men can be beautiful and you are. I've seen you standing in front of the mirror dissatisfied with what you see. "I'm too skinny, no butt, hollow and virtually hairless chest," your expression says to me. Jeez, you're worse than most of my girlfriends with your self-criticism. Let me assure you, lover, I've seen all of you now, and you're beautiful. I've seen you bleeding, sick, vomiting, crying, pointing a gun at me. Now I've seen you standing before me, naked as the day you were born, wearing nothing but a hesitant smile and an erection. You're beautiful, okay? I lust for you, I am lying here with just my head touching your chest and already I want you again so badly my jaw aches from clenching it.

There's so much you don't know, can't know. You'll always have that question in your eyes when you look at me, "Why him?" How can I explain? I can't, I won't. You don't know him like I do, don't know the other side that exists in him. To you, he's just the big, glowering guy who sits up in the executive suite, the man to whom we report, in his starched shirts and immaculate suits. I've seen the other side, the man who loves opera, who taught me to make pasta, who once lay by my side and read me to me from Pushkin's _Evgeny Onegin_. The man with improbably gentle hands, who purred like a kitten at my touch. You'll never know that man, because I won't ever tell you. That's my little secret, which I keep close to my heart, something entirely my own, which I won't have to give over to you.

You asked me if I loved him. No, I did not lie to you. I never did.

It's always been you.

Why? I've been asking myself this all day, as we've made love, as I've been crying out from the sensation of your tongue stroking my wetness, from your hands on my ass, pressing you deeper into me, I've been screaming why why why why? As I feed you raspberries and cherries from the bowl, your red-stained mouth closing over my fingers, I still am asking myself that question. Now I think I know the answer, or something close to it.

We're elemental. Hydrogen and oxygen make water. Sodium and chloride make salt. Mulder and Scully make love.

Sound too simple? It is, but there it is. I've never believed in fate, in predestination. We make our own destinies, but it's an undeniable fact that between the two of us there is something so strong, so unbreakable, that I am in utter awe at its force. I felt it the first night we were in Oregon, chasing our very first set of little gray men, and I spent long, long years ignoring the pull, telling myself nice little dictums about trust, partnership, loyalty. Bullshit. I loved you then, as I love you know.

Call me a slow learner. Call the both of us slow learners.

It's all about friction, Mulder. I push, you pull, but somehow we get somewhere.

I need the stimulation. You make me come alive, in infinitesimal ways. We sit in rental cars in boondock towns in the middle of who the hell knows where and argue about who killed the boy found in the pond with his head a mile and a half away, and it's intense, infuriating. I get colder and more logical by the minute, while you just sit there, smirking, so damn sure you're right, but the bottom line is, I am loving the conflict, the tension, the friction that is so thick in the air you could scoop it up with a spoon and serve it in a glass bowl for dessert. It's a high more powerful than crack, more addictive than heroin. You and me, baby, we're better than drugs, we're pure adrenaline.

Mulder, we're a couple of junkies and together we can provide the fix. Straight to the vein, no needles necessary.

Yet, it's more than that. It can be tender, it can be comfort. It can be you, holding me as I contemplate my death. It can be me, sponging your feverish body to health again.

Can I tell you a secret?

On that night at the hospital, as I was so precariously close to death, I awoke to the sound of the door opening. I was so weak I couldn't open my eyes, couldn't speak, but I immediately knew from the sound of the footsteps that it was you, Mulder.

You knelt by my bedside, lay your head on the bed and collapsed in wracking sobs. I don't know if you were crying for me, for yourself, for the both of us, but it broke my heart to hear you so vulnerable and lost. God, I wanted to gather you in my arms and soothe the pain, but I was helpless, paralyzed to the bed, an involuntary voyeur to this naked display of your ravaged soul.

Instead, it was you who comforted me. Your tears subsided and you spent most of the rest of the night sitting in the bedside chair, holding my hand. I now believe it was the warmth and strength of that hand that kept me anchored to the land of the living during that long, dark night. Towards morning, I was able to open my eyes and I saw you dozing in the chair, my hand still in your firm grip.

That is the moment I realized it was now my choice to make--to live or to die.

I chose life.

Do you see, now? Do you understand what I mean when I say elemental? We need each other, like water, like food. We are the only thing that can save the other.

God, my therapist would roll her eyes if she heard me say that, but she's not me. She's never bargained her own life for her lover's, she's never chosen her lover over her sister, she's never had to face the darkness like we have. Would she really blame us for wanting to create some light in our lives?

Come here, now. That's right, kiss away my tears and tell me jokes to get me to laugh. Help me to stop taking myself too seriously. Teach me to watch cartoons, to leave the bed unmade for the day. Let's be normal people for a while, who go to movies, have dinner and go for walks, holding hands.

Let me kiss away your fears. I can taste the raspberries you ate, your mouth is tastes like summer. We can take turns, I'll be the strong one for a while and then we'll switch, okay? Let me hold you during the nightmares and tell you that you're here with me and everything will be just fine.

We can play pretend for a while.

Mulder, I'm sore as hell, but I want you again. I need you inside me now, filling me, our skin touching, the two of us connected. Oh, that's it, it hurts, but God, you feel so good, do it harder, shit, do you even begin to know how I love you? I love your smell, the way your eyes get a little crossed as you're about to orgasm, how your muscles in your back become knotted. The way you fuck me like a strong woman, not a delicate flower. I'm tough, and you know just how tough I am, that I won't break in your grasp. You take these deep, sweeping strokes into me, until I feel like the bed is opening up, that I'm opening, getting deeper, pooling into fathomless depths of animal arousal. I love the way you aren't afraid to be noisy, to groan, to moan, to urge me on, to tell me what you like. The way you say, "Oh yeah, like that, bring your knees up Scully, shit you're so tight and wet and Christ, I'm gonna come if you do that." And the look in your eyes when I talk back to you, telling you precisely how I want it too.

Partners, in every sense of the word. Working together for a common goal, whether it be the truth or the perfect orgasm. I'd like to think we'll eventually find both. After all this, I still have my optimism more or less intact.

Tomorrow is coming precariously close. I can almost hear the digital clock humming if I listen hard enough. We have that dreaded meeting in the morning, and we're going to have to pull ourselves into our best facsimile of professional Mulder and Scully to get through it.

What comes tomorrow? Where do we take this?

Questions, always the questions. For once I'm going to let this one slide and just let myself love you. I hope you can do the same.

I bend down to look at your face. You're eyes are closed as if you are dozing, but the faintest of smiles plays at your lips. Something inside me expands, and I realize it's the place in my soul where you belong.

As the room becomes darker, we lie together, content to exist in the moment, breathing together.

Tomorrow will come soon enough. I've set the alarm for 6:00 am.

END


	7. Hotel

Met him in a hotel.

Met him in a hotel.

*

_You have reached the voice mail of Special Agent Dana Scully. I will be unavailable until 2 pm. If this is an emergency, please call my cellular phone at 202-555-3564._

*

He's already in the room. She can hear the clink of ice in the bucket and a rustling behind the door. Key in hand, she pauses for a moment before going in.

*

So many hotels, so many motels. Super 8. Holiday Inn. Hyatt Regency. The Sunset Motor Court. Plush business hotels and seedy small-town motels with roaches and no television. No matter the place, they always smell faintly of mildew, of the skin and clothing of strangers.

It's just a few hours stolen from a busy day. Safety, behind that locked door; a simple universe of one bed, one man, just an hour or two to spare in their lives. No distractions in those rooms.

*

He often was pacing the room when she arrived, always standing when she opened the door, standing so straight and tall, dwarfing her. That military posture of his, still evident nearly thirty years later.

*

Check in separately, one half-hour apart. Leave separately as well. That's the drill.

*

He's hungry for it today, she can tell, lips constantly pulled back, as if making to growl. She scribbles the name of a hotel down on a post-it note and passes it to him, feeling like a freshman in study hall. He glances down at the scrap of paper and smiles at her; tears the yellow note into little pieces. She's not ashamed to admit that she feels like growling, too. One finger is raised. One o'clock, only two more hours to go. They both laugh in the confines of the dingy basement office, laugh at the convoluted games they are forced to play. You never know who is listening.

*

Pull back the mildewy flowered bedspread to reveal the clean, white sheets beneath. She loves the sight of those sheets, the promise they augur.

*

She glanced at her watch. "Oh God, it's nearly 2:00. I have to get back."

His finger touched her lips. "Stay."

Shaking her head, "No, I have to go. I told him I was having a crown replaced at the dentist. I'm expecting toxicology reports back."

A hand closed over her wrist and his voice was nearly beseeching. "Don't leave."

She got out of bed and started dressing.

*

A hot, humid August afternoon, holed up in a Comfy Inn somewhere in the bowels of Mississippi. He laughs as she tickles his feet, his chest and stomach. Abruptly, he sits up and looks at her, smiling broadly. "I have fun with you, Scully."

Fun. It's true, she realizes with surprise, they do have fun together. They are able to forget. She tickles him again, just to hear him dissolve in helpless laughter.

*

His eyes were dark brown in the gloom of the closed drapes. "Do you regret this?"

A flash of Little Rock, remembering how swiftly he moved to her and caught her in the deepest of kisses. She shook her head. "I don't do anything I regret," she whispered.

*

Brown hair is pillowed against white sheets, sweat coursing down his face. It seems the air conditioning system has decided to take a vacation. The man cries out as she moves her tongue up and down his straining hardness. "Don't stop, don't stop, don't-" he mutters.

She stops.

"Bitch," he groans, throwing his head against the pillow.

"Your problem is you're too goddamn impatient," she says, and starts again, moving her tongue and lips to the rhythm of his moans.

*

A few times, at the last minute, he couldn't make it. She'd walk into the room and find it distressingly empty. Her cell phone would ring twice and she knew that was the signal. Kicking her heels off, she'd flop down onto the bed and stare at the ugly, stained ceiling. What am I doing here, she'd think. Sighing, she'd check out and drive back to the office.

*

At the Westin she realizes she's been here before, in this very same room with the dusty rose walls and matching drapes, the same view of the Washington Monument. Only that time, she was with someone else. Does that make me a slut, she wonders, grinning. No, it makes me human. She rolls over to kiss her lover, trying to banish the other from her thoughts, but he remains in the room with the two  
of them, an invisible specter tingeing the encounter with guilt. Bless me father, for I have sinned. I left one man for another.

His psychic fingerprints are all over the generic queen-sized bed, branding her with the memory of gray February skies outside the window as they turned the heat up high and climbed under the covers. Strong, strong arms wrapped around her shivering body as he abruptly entered her, roughly claiming what was his.

She can admit she misses him at times, misses his low, rumbling chuckle. His broad shoulders under her fingertips. His quiet intensity.

Her lover turns over and touches her hair. "Scully, are you okay?"

Shutting her eyes, she smiles. "I'm just thinking."

*

Rain tapped at the windows on their second night together in Little Rock. The rain never stopped for the entire time she spent in the state of Arkansas, a state she always thought was supposed to be rather dry. The Holiday Inn, mints on the pillows, the toilet sanitized for her protection, but she had found her protector, her refuge.

"Sometimes I just want to quit, to walk away from all this," she said in the dark.

He stirred, rising on his elbow. "Why don't you?"

She imagined the face of her partner, and shook her head. "I don't know," she said quietly, "Something's keeping me here. I guess I own the quest as much as he does. There are things I need to know before I leave." Her cancer, her sister, her daughter.

At that moment, she wondered what her partner was doing down the hall in his own room. Who did he have to comfort him on a night like this?

"Let me," he whispered to her, "Let me help you forget for a night."

His hands methodically traced the curves of her naked body, as if attempting to memorize her form. She shivered at his touch.

*

He's a restless sleeper, tossing and turning, stealing the sheets and blankets, fighting the death dreams. Sometimes he calls out names in ragged desperation.

You can't save everyone, she thinks. You can't save us all.

  
Sometimes he slept so heavily, nothing could rouse him. She shook his shoulder. "Wake up," she said, "It's past 4:00. You have to get up and get back to the office." Blissfully, he dreamed on, looking vulnerable without his glasses.

*

Back at work, she briskly walked in, heels clacking on the linoleum. She hung up her coat and put her briefcase on the desk. Her partner didn't even look up from the file he was reading. "How was the dentist?" he mumbled.

She shrugged. "Fine. It was, you know, the dentist."

*

Once she walked into a motel room full of garishly colored balloons. "One for each time I've made love to you," he said, grinning. God, how unlike him that was. He was a man utterly transformed by his love.

She laughed, but was oddly embarrassed by the naked look of adoration on his face.

*

Her lover slides into her, hard. "This-is-love--" he says between gritted teeth.

Pushing him harder into her, she nods. This is love, she understands now. Finally, she has love.

*

How did I ever resist this, she wonders sometimes. How could she spend all this time by his side, not knowing of his hands, his mouth, his eyes clamped shut in abject pleasure?

*

He was late, so she started without him. Couldn't help it, she'd been thinking of him all day, even as she wielded a scalpel during an autopsy, she could feel the texture of his neck under her mouth. On the bed she touched herself, dreaming of what was to come. As she came against the starchy sheets, he walked in, wiping rain off his scalp. He looked at her and her face turned read in shame. Sitting by her side, still wearing his dripping Burberry coat, he stroked her flushed breasts with his cold, wet fingertips.

She stretched her arm out to him.

*

There are times when she briefly falls asleep and awakens to see the generic paintings on the walls of ships tossing on stormy seas. Where am I? She's momentarily panicked, heart thumping wildly until she sees the man lying next to her.

*

It's the briefest vacation from their lives. In the bathroom she washes up, attempts to erase the signs of lovemaking from herself. She feels refreshed, rejuvenated, ready to again lift her weapon and rejoin the battle. Sliding into her pumps, she marches on.

*

Once they didn't even make it as far as the bed, but collapsed in a heap on the bland beige carpet. "Must have you now," he rasped into her ear, kissing her with his glasses still on.

She now can smile at what an absurd tableau they must have made, the large man still dressed in his gray suit and tie, riding the small woman, her wool skirt hiked up over her hips.

*

The sun is just setting when they get back to the motel, exhausted from a long day in the field. Shutting the door behind her, the room feels like home, despite the orange shag carpet and the water stains on the wallpaper.

She unknots his tie and slides it out from the blue oxford shirt. "Are you suggesting something?" he asks.

Sometimes she thinks she's knocked him for a bit of a loop. She was so well known for her frosty, stoic facade, her buttoned and zipped primness, she believes he eventually took it for Bible truth. Dana Scully is frigid. She's all work and not fun, bet she's never gotten decently laid.

It just shows you, you never know someone until you get close enough. Close enough to burn, be burned.

*

Only a select few have seen her cry. She doesn't ever want to be seen as anything but strong, in complete control. Her mother, her sister, her lover have seen her cry. Her former lover, only once, when she told him she was leaving.

*

Hurriedly, they strip each other in the chill of the Roadside Inn. Trench coats are pooled together on the floor in a beige heap; jackets are strewn against the chair. She smirks as their holsters and guns are tossed on the cheap laminate dresser. Love in the FBI, indeed.

She stands before him, dressed only in her panties, skin puckering with goose bumps. His mouth falls open. "Sometimes I forget."

"Forget what?"

"I forget how beautiful you are."

Despite the cold room, she flushes. No, he's the one who is outrageously beautiful, she thinks, her man, her lover, already hard, ready to take her.

Her tongue traces the contour of his full lower lip, counts his bottom row of teeth. He pushes her onto the sagging bed and kneels before her on the floor. "I've been thinking about tasting you all day," he says.

She shuts her eyes, impatient for his mouth on her. She, too, found it difficult to concentrate all day, when all she wanted to do was sprawl on this cheap, ugly bed and feel his face between her thighs, parting her and spreading her as far as she can go.

We really need to get a grip, she thinks. This is so unprofessional. Then again, she stopped caring about that a long time ago.

*

She had nearly drifted off to sleep when the sound of his voice jerked her back to consciousness. "Why?" He asked, "Why me, Scully?"

Rolling onto her stomach, she rested her chin on folded arms. "You saved me. You're the light in my dark life."

It was a dark night as she sat at the window, watching the slow-moving Little Rock traffic below. I can't do this anymore, she thought, I can't stand smelling death, the stench surrounding me. Even though she had thoroughly showered, she could still smell it on her skin. Unfolding her arm, she stared at the delicate tracery of blue veins under white skin. It would be so easy, she thought. Just then, there was a knock at the door.

His voice was measured, almost flat, months later in another hotel room. "Now that you've been saved, what happens?"

She didn't have an answer to that.

*

Getting up to dress, she glances at her lover, still in bed and lying on his side. Their mortality strikes her just then and she lifts her head up, to the heavens, she supposes. Give us time, she silently entreats, don't separate us just yet. She wonders how she'd survive, having finally known love.

*

In the bustling corridor, her former lover passes with a nod and a grunted greeting. She stands in the middle of the hall dumbly, thinking, I wish I knew how to tell you how sorry I am.

*

Key in hand, she stands in front of the door, pausing before letting herself in. For a second she forgets who is inside, waiting for her.

*

Glancing at the digital clock at the bedside table, she gasps, "I have to go, it's nearly 3:00."

He rolls over and throws his heavy arm over her body. "Stay," he whispers.

She sits up, the sheet sliding off her naked body. "I can't and neither can you. We have piles of work waiting for us."

A wet mouth moves up her spine. "Stay," he repeats.

Sighing with pleasure and chagrin, she sinks back down onto the mattress.

She stays.

_You have reached the voice mail of Special Agent Dana Scully. I have been unavoidably delayed in my return to the office. If this is an emergency, please call my cellular phone at 202-555-3564._

Met him in a hotel.


	8. Little Rock

**Part I- A Flash of Red**

_And all the time, and all the time, my love,_  
You too are there, beneath the word, above  
The syllable, to underscore and stress  
The vital rhythm. One heard a woman's dress  
Rustle in days of yore. I've often caught  
The sound and sense of your approaching thought  
And all in you is youth, and you make new,  
By quoting them, old things I made for you.

_Vladimir Nabokov_

On Saturday morning he wakes up and decides to go running. It is a warm October day, glorious blue skies overhead. A run will be just the thing to lift him out of his funk, bring himself out of his mind by focusing entirely on the body.

Down silent weekend Alexandria streets he pushes himself hard, glad to see that at his age he is still in fine shape, can still effortlessly kick and glide down the street, eating pavement. For the first time in months he feels content.

On a commercial street several miles later, he pauses, panting and sweating, and goes into a little market for a bottle of water. Coming out of the store, taking a long pull of the cool water, a flash of red stops him in his tracks.

There they are, the two of them, having breakfast at an outside table at Michael's Cafe. Run, Skinner, his internal voice orders him, get the hell out of here before they see you, but instead his disobedient body moves him behind the safety of a large tree.

This is so wrong, he thinks, I'm spying on them.

It doesn't matter; they'd never see him anyhow. Mulder and Scully are utterly, completely focused on each other. A nuclear bomb could go off down the street and they wouldn't as much as lift their heads.

She's wearing a blue oxford shirt that is huge on her, nearly hanging down to her knees; the sleeves rolled up above her elbows. Mulder's shirt, he realizes. Her hair is wet and slicked behind her ears and he notices that Mulder has a wet head as well. They veritably glow in the morning sunshine, her cheeks pink, his eyes shining as he lifts a forkful of pancakes to his mouth. They look like they just spend an entire night in bed together, and he realizes they did. He's known this fact to be true for months, but he's never seen the hard evidence before him, with his own eyes.

Skinner's muscles tense as he watches them put their heads together, foreheads nearly touching. Even over the noise of traffic and the thumping reggae coming from the t-shirt shop next door, he is able to hear her bell-like laughter. Scully's laughter, so rarely given, so gratefully received.

Get the fuck out of here, his internal voice repeats, louder this time, but he can't seem to find the strength he needs to move. The scene before him is bizarrely fascinating to him.

She's happy, he thinks, bitterness rising in his throat. I never could do that for her. Even as she smiled and laughed for him, as she came so hard under him the muscles of her thighs nearly left bruises on his body, there was still an imperceptible miasma of melancholy surrounding her.

Good for you, he silently says to the woman sitting across the street from him. If this is what it takes to make you happy, then all I can do is wish you the best. Again, her laughter floats across the street and Mulder pushes a lock of hair out of her eyes.

Skinner dumps the half-full bottle of water in a nearby trash can and begins running once more, a full sprint until he reaches his building.

After his shower, Skinner stands nude and dripping in front of the picture window in the living room, not even noticing that he's getting water all over the carpeting.

Three months, he thinks, it's been three months and what progress have I made? Two steps forward, one back, he tells himself. Today you took a step back, but it doesn't mean that tomorrow you won't take another step ahead. Away from her, away from Little Rock.

\--------

On the plane, Skinner grimaced as he tried to find a comfortable position for his long legs. Whatever happened to the halcyon days of old, he thought, when an assistant director of the FBI traveled first class? Curse those budget cuts. He hadn't even been able to get a direct flight on such short notice, but was made to change planes in Atlanta.

It was Saturday night. He was supposed to be at Bill Shepperton's, watching the basketball game on his big screen TV, but instead he was on a plane bound for Little Rock, Arkansas, of all places, to clean up one hell of a mess.

At least this time it wasn't the fault of his "pet agents," as the Director was wont to call Mulder and Scully. It was Mike McGreavy, the SAC of the Little Rock office. Evidence strongly suggested the chief suspect in a string of particularly gruesome child murders in Arkansas and Oklahoma was the SAC's brother-in-law. A cover-up on the part of the Little Rock office was suggested, an unholy mess that Skinner was being sent to clean up. He sipped at his ridiculously small glass of orange juice, thinking, when did I become the FBI housekeeper? Still, duty was duty, and Skinner was a man who understood duty.

The plane landed and Skinner caught a taxi to the Holiday Inn, where his agents also had rooms. A stingingly cold rain pelted him from the two seconds it took to bolt from the cab to the hotel's entrance.

After dropping his bag off in his room, he went up one floor to find Mulder and Scully. He tried Scully's room first, knowing the two tended to camp out in her room on the road, hers being the neater of the two. Not for the first time, he wondered if his two agents were lovers. It wouldn't be the first time in the history of the FBI for that to happen. Hell, the LA field office was known throughout the Bureau as "The Singles Bar." Something told him no, though. Something in the intensity of the looks between the two of them suggested that while there was a wealth of feeling between Mulder and Scully, those feelings were largely unspoken.

It took a long time for Scully to open her door, and for a brief instant he worried that he was terribly wrong about Mulder and Scully and had interrupted something. Finally, the door slowly creaked open and she stood before him, wearing only a thin robe of blue and white striped cotton.  
Skinner was slightly disconcerted by the sight, never having seen his agent, save her hospital stays, less than fully dressed in one of her severe suits. He stumbled over his greeting. "Agent Scully, have I come at a bad time?"

She shook her head and it was then he noticed her eyes were swollen and red. Well, he thought, the stoic Scully does cry.

"May I come in?" he asked.

Her voice sounded unusually hoarse, and he wondered if she had a cold. "Of course you can." She opened the door wider and ushered him in to her room. To his surprise, Mulder was not there.

As if reading his mind, Scully said, "Mulder went to bed a few hours ago. He hasn't been getting a lot of sleep on this case."

The room was surgically neat, but still contained small touches of her presence- a blue silk scarf flung across the dresser in a diaphanous heap, three votive candles arranged on the small round table by the window, a paperback copy of Nabokov's _Pale Fire_ on the bedside table, a pair of glasses resting next to it. Skinner perched on the edge of one of the chairs and Scully sat on the bed, neatly tucking her legs under her.

He was the first to speak, his voice sounding unaccountably tinny and hollow to his own ears. "How is the case progressing?"

Staring at her own hands, folded in her lap, Scully did not speak for a long moment. "It's difficult," she finally said. "Even after all this time, I find the murder of children hard to stomach." She looked up at him and for the first time Skinner noticed how blue her eyes truly  
were.

"At least David Mueller has been taken into custody."

She let out a puff of air, as if she had been holding her breath. "That's what makes this case so hateful. Mulder and I have evidence that the boys here suspected him almost five weeks ago, but McGreavy destroyed key evidence found at Mueller's home. That's three children in those five weeks. Two boys, both aged five, and a four-year old girl."

Skinner shook his head. "I never thought Mike McGreavy could be capable of this. I worked with him in Boston and he was a good agent. An honorable guy."

"That's the thing, sir. I'm beginning to think there are no men of honor in this world..." Her voice trailed off as her hand traced slow patterns on the flowered bedspread. "It's just endless circles of lies, of conspiracy, of covering up the truth."

What happened to the fresh-faced, idealistic young woman who was recruited for this project from Quantico? The woman sitting before him was brittle with fatigue, sitting slightly hunched over, as if in pain. He had an urge to take her in his arms and try to soothe her pain, but knew his urge was sheer lunacy. Dana Scully was a woman almost entirely built on her own image of her strength and competency. He would not sabotage the only thing she really had in the world.

Standing up, Scully said, "I'm sorry, but I don't want to discuss the case tonight. Tomorrow, after I've had my coffee and some breakfast, yes, but right now what I want is a drink." She cocked her head at him. "Will you join me?"

He nodded, suddenly aware he was alone in a hotel room with her, not in the safety of his office or hers. A room that only contained two chairs, a desk, a dresser and a small table. And, oh yes, a queen-sized bed. The proximity of the bed, the bed upon which she had just been sitting, made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

You can't deny you've wanted her from the beginning, he told himself. Of course he did, she was a beautiful woman, brilliant in her understated manner, but he had always desired her in the abstract, as if she were a model or a movie star, as untouchable as an Iranian woman wrapped in her black chador. Now Scully was three-dimensional reality, clad only in a thin bathrobe, rummaging through the minibar for something to drink. He could faintly smell the sweet aroma of almonds radiating from her body.

She lifted her head from the fridge, golden-red hair falling across her cheek. "Will vodka do?"

"Fine," he said, more of a grunt than the actual word.

Two little bottles of Stolichnaya were plunked down on the wood table, along with a bottle of orange juice. "Could you get us some ice?" Scully asked in a low voice.

Mutely obliging, Skinner grabbed the ice bucket from the top of the dresser and headed out the door. As soon as the door slammed behind him, he thought, get the hell out of here, go back to your room where you belong. Instead, he shrugged and continued down the hall to the ice machine. He was a man who prided himself on his self-control. This is safe, he thought. Nothing will happen, nothing at all.

  
**Part II- In the Drawer and Across the Table**

_Now I shall spy on beauty as none has_  
Spied on it yet. Now I shall cry out as  
None has cried out. Now I shall try what none  
Has tried. Now I shall do what none has done.

_Vladimir Nabokov_

Back in Alexandria, months later, Skinner grimaces at his own naivete. How little he knew her then, and how little he knew of himself. He was about to embark upon one hell of an education.

While dressing, he considers the interesting fact that a man rarely knows when his life is about to utterly change.

In the locked bottom drawer of his desk at home lies Skinner's deepest secret. Pushed behind his files of tax returns is a small velvet-covered box.

In a fit of unbridled optimism a few weeks after Little Rock, Skinner found himself at Tiffany's, blowing a sizeable chunk of his savings on a gift for her. Now he holds the tiny box in his large hand, afraid to open it. Summoning the courage after several breathless moments, he snaps the box open to reveal a pair of small earrings, each a sapphire surrounded by an aureole of diamonds, set in platinum.

He never could find just the right time to give them to her.

Snapping the lid shut again, he returns it to its resting place in the drawer. He can't bear to return the earrings, not just yet.

\-----------------

When he returned to the room, Scully was sitting at the table, rolling one of the mini vodka bottles on the table. She looked up, and for a moment seemed surprised to see him there, holding the ice bucket. "How do you like it?" she asked.

His mouth opened. What was she getting at? Oh yes, the vodka. "With the juice will be fine."

She grinned. "Nice to see a man who is secure enough in his masculinity to drink a screwdriver. A lot of the guys I know would drink it straight, just so they wouldn't look like a sissy."

Sitting down at the table across from her, he laughed. "And how does Mulder drink his vodka?"

Shrugging, she scooped ice into two hotel-issue glasses. "I don't know, I've never drank vodka with him, as far as I can remember."

For a brief moment, he felt special. "How would he drink it, if he were to drink it with you?" He wondered, where am I going with this?

"Mulder?" She smiled, the first smile with teeth he had seen from Scully in months. A shame, really. She had beautiful teeth, even and white in her lovely mouth. "He'd take the orange juice."

Skinner shifted in his seat and accepted the drink she offered him. It was so strong he wanted to screw up his face, but he forced himself to keep still. "May I ask you a personal question?" he asked, and immediately wanted to retract the words that had come out of his mouth.

She looked up and again, that smile. "You want to know if we're involved."

"I'm just curious, although it's none of my business." He desperately hoped he hadn't offended her.

This time it was a laugh that graced him, a curiously incongruous laugh coming from her still tear-streaked face. "Of course it's your business. You're my supervisor and we both know it's not exactly procedure to sleep with one's partner."

"Should I take that as a 'no comment'?"

One arched red eyebrow rose and she put down her glass with a thud on the rickety ersatz wood table. "You can take that any way you'd like."

For a minute he thought he detected a flirtatious tone in her voice, but he shrugged it off as his travel-weary senses playing tricks on him. He took another sip of his drink, feeling the warmth of the alcohol begin to spread across his chest to his limbs. Skinner wasn't much of a drinker and the strong drink made him rapidly light-headed. Stop, he thought, you have to stop drinking this before you can use the alcohol as an excuse. Then, to his horror, he realized he was getting hard, there at the table with Special Agent Dana Scully. His subordinate, his agent. No, no, no, go back to your room, screamed his conscience, but instead he reached across the table and poured them another drink.

Scully leaned back in her chair and ran her hand through her hair. I wonder how her hair feels, he thought through his growing alcoholic haze. "I needed this," she said, her voice not slurred, but slower and silkier than normal.

This is an incredibly bad situation, Skinner rapidly thought, but there was nowhere else he wanted to be at the moment. Tough choice, you can sit alone in your room watching CNN in your skivvies, or have a drink with a beautiful woman in her bathrobe. But she's not just any woman, he had to remind himself, so think of a neutral topic, something that will defuse the charge that is hanging in this room between the two of you. "This case seems to be especially tough on you."

The corners of her mouth turned down and the worry crease between her brows appeared. Her hand thrummed a steady rhythm on the surface of the table. "I thought I told you I didn't want to discuss the case tonight."

The heat rose up in his face, and he felt ashamed for bringing up what was so obviously difficult for her.

For a moment he was reminded of sitting across the dining room table from Sharon. In the first years of his marriage he couldn't wait to go home to her, to share his day and hear about hers. To simply exist in the comfort of her presence. Slowly, every so slowly it became a habit. He returned home to her for dinner because it was expected of him. He was a married man and that's what married men did at the end of a working day. In the last few years it became an uncomfortable exercise, having dinner with Sharon. He couldn't share much about his day, since so much of his job had become, well, surreal and secret. They moved the food around their plates and attempted to fill the stale air between them with bits and pieces of conversation. One day, Skinner looked up at the woman sitting across from him and knew the connection that had bound them together for seventeen years was irrevocably severed. There was nothing left to say.

Now he sat across from Scully and he suddenly, irrationally, wanted to tell her everything. To tell her of his childhood, his tour in Vietnam, of the deals he made for her life, and Mulder's.

Once he even sold his soul to the devil for her.

He stood before the devil, hat in hand, and offered himself for her health and safety, not for love or honor, but because it was the only way he could mitigate the hell which she had been thrust into. Because it was the right thing to do.

Scully gave him an appraising look, blue eyes cutting over him. "Do you ever get lonely on nights like this?"

Again, he shifted in his seat. This was too much; this wasn't an area for them to explore while alone in a hotel room. His jaw ached from clenching it. "Of course," he said.

She leaned back in her chair and the folds of her kimono slightly parted to reveal the beginnings of the soft curves of her breasts. "I don't want to sit here and unburden myself to you. I'm not good at that." Scully cut herself off by taking a sip of her drink.

"You can tell me whatever you'd like. I'm not here as your supervisor right now, but as your friend."

Cocking an auburn eyebrow, she gave a low laugh. "I don't have many friends any more. This life leaves little room for such luxuries."

Skinner reflected on the life she might have led had she not been assigned to the X-Files. A prestigious position heading the Pathology department at Quantico, a nice, professional husband and a couple of redheaded kids. A minivan and soccer practices.

He cleared his dry throat. "Nor do I," he said, "But that's how it is with a lot of men. I have friends for golf, for drinks and sports events, but we rarely really talk."

Resting her elbows on the table, Scully smiled and he realized he could see right down the front of her robe. He averted his eyes, not wanting that vision, not wanting proof that she was, indeed, a woman. A woman with breasts, curves and sweet-smelling skin. She parted her lips, still wet from her drink. "What would you do if I asked you to kiss me?"

Heat again flooded his face. My God, he frantically thought, I'm actually blushing. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. What to say? What to say? Finally, "I'd think you were a little drunk and not considering the full implication of that statement." Skinner had to force his voice to remain even.

Her blurred image shook its head. "I know the implications and right now I don't care. One of the most important lessons I've learned in five years is when to break the rules."

Skinner thought of her disciplinary file, nearly an inch thick, and Mulder's, at least three or four inches.

He stood, meaning to leave, his back aching from being crammed into coach seats for half the day. "We can't do this," he said in a voice that came out gruffer than he had intended. His inner voice protested, you can, you can, you can...

Scully rose and her face held no shame, no embarrassment. She stood with impossible poise, an amused expression crossing her face. "Kiss me," she whispered.

And he did. He took five broad steps across the carpet to her, grasped her small head in her hands and he bent down to kiss her. In the end it was a simple thing to do. Armageddon did not rain down when his lips brushed hers, when their tongues met. The hotel room was still there; the city of Little Rock remained intact.

Trembling fingers found the sash of her robe and the cotton folds fell open, her feverish body firmly pressing against his still-clothed one. Scully broke off the kiss and lifted her face to his, her eyes glittering.

"I need to go," he mumbled, pained with the sheer force of his arousal.

She grabbed his hand and pressed it to her flushed cheek, a gesture he found ineffably tender. "You need to stay," she said in her dusky alto.

He stayed.

Unhurriedly, she flicked off all the lights, save the small lamp at bedside. With calm hands she flung back the bedspread to reveal a sea of white sheets and he laid her down upon them, feeling clumsy on top of her fragile-seeming body.

With that, their leisurely pace ended and time itself seemed to fold and speed up for Skinner as their clothes were carelessly tossed, piece by piece on the floor below, until they were touching skin-to-skin. He started laughing, low rumbles in his bare chest, at the supreme absurdity of being naked in bed with Scully. Her hand moved to his mouth and his laughter abruptly ceased.

He began to devour her, and she him, a swirl of mouths moving across warm flesh, fingers and tongues discovering unexplored territory, discovering surprising areas of pleasure: his elbow, her instep. Lord, the soft, female skin under his fingertips, her breathing in his ear, the fierce grip of her fingers on his ass. Abruptly, she sat up and rummaged in her purse, which sat at the side of the bed. She handed him a foil-wrapped packet and breathed, "Now."

Protesting, he said, "But I want to--"

Scully cut him off. "Now," she imperiously said and flopped back down onto the pillow.

It seemed ages to tear the condom package open and for a second he worried he might lose his erection, until he glanced at the lush cream and pink curves of the woman waiting for him. Only twice had he had the occasion to use a condom since those far-away R&amp;R days in Bangkok, when he'd cruise the narrow, crowded streets of the Patpong district with a pocket full of Army-issue rubbers. He felt like a fumbling teenager, smoothing the chilly latex over his cock, but he also felt unbearably excited.

Fully attired, Skinner moved into the soft cradle of her thighs. "Are you sure?" he asked.

Scully's mouth quirked in a glimmer of a grin. "I'm sure."

One slow push and he was inside her, and he was lost. Lost to the sweet madness of the act, her heat, her depth. Her legs moved up to hook around his back and he was drawn deeper into her. He wondered if it was possible to lose one's mind from such abject pleasure.

She let out a soft sound that was neither a sigh nor a moan and his mouth found hers. Oh, her sweet vodka-scented mouth, her breasts rising and falling against his chest, he felt the pressure rising to unbearable levels as he drove in and out of her. No, he screamed to himself, it's much too soon, but his orgasm exploded across his body and he bucked against her one final time, muffling his moans in  
the satiny curtain of her hair.

Lifting his head, he felt mortified with shame. "I'm so sorry," he said, head still swooning from his orgasm. "It's been a while."

Warm lips pressed against his shoulder. "Don't worry about it," she said in a surprisingly sweet voice. "The first time is never the best."

The impact of her words sank into his brain. There would be a next time.

Realizing he must be hurting her with the weight of his body atop hers, he withdrew, rolled off her and disposed of the condom. He pulled her warm and sticky body to his. "I wanted this to be wonderful."

She chuckled, "Why, I do believe you're a romantic."

He, too, laughed. "I can be."

Her features turned grave and she touched his face with her hand. "I can't promise you anything, Skinner."

Sighing, he said, "I know."

"I have to take this on a day-to-day basis," she said, her voice slurring with sleepiness.

Skinner repeated, "I know."

Scully had fallen asleep, her head resting on his shoulder. The almond scent of her soap surrounded him.

Before he was pulled down into his own slumber, he felt a shudder pass through his body. He visualized himself, helplessly falling down the abyss.

He had fallen in love.

He didn't know whether to rejoice or mourn.

And then sleep snatched him away.**Part III- At the Door**

_Although I conquer all the earth,_  
yet for me there is only one city.  
In that city for me there is only one house;  
And in that house, one room only;  
And in that room, a bed.  
And one woman sleeps there,  
The shining joy and jewel of all my kingdom.

_Sanskrit poem_  
  
The chiming of the doorbell breaks Skinner's train of thought. Who could be stopping by on a Saturday morning? He remembers several times when he flung the door open to reveal Scully, her face wreathed in a smile and an overnight bag flung over her shoulder. He knows it won't be Scully this time. It hasn't been her in months.

Instead he opens the door to find Sharon, holding a large carton in her arms. "Hello, Walter," she says in a soft voice.

"Sharon, this is a surprise." It has been a long time since he's seen his ex-wife, since their tenuous reconciliation ended in failure. She looks good, her nose sprinkled with freckles from the sun, her hair now highlighted with subtle strands of gold. There is a new quality to Sharon, something alive and sparkling with energy. This is what life without me does to a woman, he thinks dourly.

Sharon smiles in embarrassment. "I'm sorry to just show up like this, but I tried calling a little while ago and got your voice mail."

"I was running."

"I thought that might be it. The new people are moving into the house next week and I wanted to drop off this box of your things. I figured that if you weren't home I'd leave it by the door."

He opens the door wider. "Come in. I just made coffee, can I get you some?"

She steps inside and sets the box down with relief. "I'd love a cup of coffee."

While pouring the coffee, Skinner realizes he's glad to see Sharon. In the end, they parted as amicably as two people can after nearly eighteen years together. There were no ugly words of recrimination, just the understanding that their life together had quietly ended.

In the living room, Sharon is looking out the big picture windows. "This is a nice place, Walter. I'm glad to see you unpacked this time."

Oh yes, she saw that other place he'd had, during the most humiliating period in his life. He hands her a mug of coffee and shrugs. "It's okay, it suits my needs."

She settles on the gray and white couch, gathering the folds of her skirt around her. "I brought you some of your books and the wedding album."

"Our wedding album? Don't you want to keep that?" The pictures of the two of them, young and flushed with the anticipation of a new life together, drinking champagne, cutting the cake with silly grins on their faces.

Sharon's voice is gentle. "I had copies made and now we have two wedding albums."

"We were happy then, weren't we?"

She nods. "The happiest. We just grew apart, that's all. I'm trying to see it not as a failure, but as circumstance."

He, too, nods. "How are you, Sharon?"

"I'm fine, better by the day. Work keeps me busy and I have a lot of new clients."

"Glad to hear it."

She touches his cheek lightly with her cool hand. Odd, to have her touch him and not feel even a stirring of desire on his part, just the comfort of the gesture. "And how are you?"

"I'm here. Like you, working all the time."

Shaking her head, Sharon says, "You look sad, Walter. I can't put my finger on it, but you seem a little lost."

Sharon has always been so able to read him. For once, he decides to tell her the truth, to share what is weighing on his mind. Ironic, that he is only able to do this after their bond has been irrevocably severed. "I've had a lot of disappointments lately."

Her mouth turns up in a faint smile. "A woman?"

"Yes, someone I cared about left."

"I'm so sorry. Really, I am."

Skinner sets his coffee cup on the glass table with a clink. "I am too. I should have known from the beginning that it wouldn't work with her, but I was blind."

"No," Sharon says, taking his hand. "You couldn't have known."

He sighs, a gesture rather new to him. He's been sighing quite a lot these last months. "How about you?"

"Me?" Sharon points at her chest. "No broken hearts yet. I've been dating some, but no one special." She pauses. "It's strange to date again, isn't it? It's been so long since I've had to get that nervous."

His first date with Sharon was in Minneapolis, where he was a young agent in the field office. Funny as it may sound now so many years later, they went ice skating at Lake of the Isles. Her idea, of course. Later they went to the Black Forest Inn for dinner. He can still remember Sharon in the parking lot shaking the snowflakes from her dark hair before getting in his car.

"It _is _strange," he echoes. He and Scully never dated. They went from 0 to 60 in a matter of five steps across the floor and five minutes. They never went to the movies or had dinner alone in a restaurant, never walked down the street holding hands. Never were they even alone in a car together. "I have a date tonight," he says, feeling sheepish telling this to his ex-wife.

"I'm glad, Walter." She stands up. "I have to be going now, I'm meeting friends for lunch."

Skinner rises. "It was good to see you again." He kisses her on her still-smooth, still-lovely cheek.

She places her hand on his shoulder. "Take care of yourself."

And then she, too, is gone.

The apartment is once again empty.

Perhaps what he needs to do is move again. These five rooms carry too many memories of the woman he loved. Scully couldn't have been over more than a dozen or so times, but her ghost still lightly walks the carpets. The couch where she curled up with him to watch _The Manchurian Candidate_. The shower where her round bar of almond soap rested on the rack. The stove where she once cooked a late-night cheese and mushroom omelet. The white pillow where the last trace of her lay, a gently waving strand of copper.

He didn't want to love her, didn't plan on it. Skinner had no time or energy for something as consuming as love. Especially loving the one woman he couldn't, shouldn't have.

It was my folly, he thinks with another sigh. She was my great extravagance.

He doesn't claim to have any extraordinary abilities, but the night after she left, the same night he gave her to Mulder with a few guarded words, he got home and settled on the couch with a bottle of beer. Halfway into the second beer, he was suddenly swept with a chill that turned his skin into a multitude of goose bumps. He knew then, he knew that it was irrevocable, that Mulder and Scully were at that precise moment together as one. He knew it was over.

For the first time in years, he bent his head and cried.

Two steps forward and one back, he repeats to himself, his new mantra. It will get better.

Nearly every day he sees Scully, striding down the labyrinthine corridors of the Bureau in her high-heeled pumps, her face smooth and determined. In meetings she is gracious and calm while sitting beside Mulder, listening attentively. Nearly every day he sees her but they never discuss those seven months.

He can't hate her for leaving, he just can't. He can't stop loving her, either. Loving her prodigious intelligence and subtle humor, loving the worry line between her brows, the eloquence of her slender fingers.

In time, the love will fade away. Soon, he'll begin to forget her smell, the taste of her, the sound of her laughter in the middle of the night.

Dana Scully will just be gone.

\------------------

The hallway leading to the interrogation room smelled of urine and disinfectant, and of the sour bodies of the unwashed. Skinner cringed as he headed down the linoleum path, realizing his years in the executive suite had made him forget of the daily realities of law enforcement.

The guard opened the door and he saw Mike McGreavy, dressed in orange county jail scrubs, sitting at the scuffed table as if he were lounging in a bar, waiting for his first beer to be delivered by the waitress. McGreavy nodded, and Skinner pictured him, a younger man with more hair and less weight around his middle on the occasional nights they'd go to a Red Sox game or take their wives out for seafood at some local dive. It was disconcerting to see the once eager young agent, fresh out of the Academy, now the prisoner. The accused.

"Walter Skinner," McGreavy said with a languid wave of his hand. "What brings you to our fair county jail?"

Skinner sat down heavily on the creaky metal chair. "Perhaps that's a question better asked of you."

McGreavy run his hand through his thinning blond hair. "Jail's not that bad. Talk shows, three meals a day, get a chance to catch up on my reading." His eyes told another story, though, and the beads of sweat on his brow in the chilly room.

Ah yes, the confident words of a man who had been in jail less that twenty-four hours. Cutting to the chase, Skinner cleared his throat and said, "Do you want to tell me what happened here? Why you chose to protect David Mueller?"

The seat squeaked as McGreavy shifted his weight. "I'm not telling you anything without my lawyer present. I know the rules as well as you do."

"You have a hearing Tuesday with OPR. What are you going to tell them?"

McGreavy shrugged, as if profoundly unconcerned. "I'll tell them that blood is thicker than water."

"Even when children are concerned?"

The prisoner looked down at the table, his body still.

"Look, Mike, I'm the only one who can help you right now. You're not just facing aiding and abetting charges, but accessory to capital murder. That's life in prison you're facing. Can you really see spending the rest of your life living like this?"

Again, profound silence from the accused, who stared at the table as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.

Skinner tapped his pen on the table. "Okay, if you're not going to talk to me, be straight with me, then I'm leaving. I have to go deal with the press. Your actions have become the hot topic on the news and the Bureau has a nice little blot on its reputation."

He stood to go, hating sharing the room with McGreavy, hating the stench of the air and the dingy green paint, peeling shards upon the filthy floor. "One more thing," he said, as he made to leave. "Was it worth it? An entire career, a whole life for this?"

McGreavy grimaced. "What can I say? It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Skinner walked out of the room. Scully's face flashed before him, McGreavy's words echoing through his head. It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Scully was right, there were no men of honor left in the world.

\---------------  
The remainder of the day was spent in numerous emergency strategy meetings with top brass, culminating in the full horror of a crowded press conference attended by the major news networks. He had been chosen as the Bureau spokesman, a duty he fervently hated, disliking the glare of the camera lights, the strident questions from the reporters, having to pretend that all was well and contained within the FBI, when all he wanted to do was return to the interrogation room and strangle the life out of Mike McGreavy.

After all he had seen in his years in the Bureau, what McGreavy had done shouldn't have appalled him so. Betrayal was an everyday occurrence in his corner of the Hoover Building. Still, it did. He had seen the autopsy photos earlier in the day, the bruised and bloody bodies of the nine children Mueller had allegedly murdered. Flipping through the photos, the innocent eyes gone glassy and blank, Skinner tried to imagine Scully, wielding her scalpel on the little bodies. Scully, reducing those unfinished lives to statistics and measurements on a report to be filed with the coroner's office. The gentle hands that had run trails of pleasure down his chest, slicing that unblemished skin open. After seeing the photos, he was able to better understand her despondency of the night before.

And to feel ashamed for taking advantage of a rare moment of weakness for her.

Around six o'clock in the evening, he returned to the Holiday Inn to change clothes, his heart firmly lodged somewhere in the vicinity of his throat. He hadn't seen Scully all day, hadn't seen her since he slipped out of her bed like a thief somewhere around five a.m. Mulder had been present at the press conference, but in the crush of people he had only exchanged the most perfunctory of greetings with him.

In the bustling lobby, he spotted her immediately, sitting at a table in the lounge area just off to the side. Wearing a black wool turtleneck and a pair of black trousers, her hair simply brushed back over her ears, she looked more like a bohemian graduate student than a FBI agent. She was wearing her glasses and frowning at the book in front of her.

Heart pounding, he slipped into the chair opposite her. "You look so studious," he said, for lack of a better opening line.

She lifted her hear and smiled to see him. "I feel studious. This whole novel is like a giant puzzle and I have to keep on my toes to follow it and pick up all the clues." It was the copy of Nabokov's _Pale Fire_ that he had spotted in her room the night before.

"You like mysteries," he noted.

Scully shrugged. "I supposed I have to, otherwise I wouldn't have chosen this life." She leaned forward conspiratorially. "I blame it on reading too many Nancy Drew books as a child."

Skinner guffawed. "I was hooked on Hardy Boys, myself, even though all they ever did was catch smugglers. I hope they grew up and became DEA agents."

The waitress, a plump woman with an awe-inspiring tower of teased blonde hair came over. "What can I get for you, darlin'?" she drawled in a honey-sweet voice.

"Do you have Laphroig?" he asked.

"Sure do," the waitress cooed.

"I'll take that straight up."

The blonde sashayed away, switching her rump as she went. Scully snorted in amusement. "My, she's something else."

"What are you drinking?" he asked.

She pointed to her china cup. "I'm being good and having plain coffee. I had enough to drink last night."

Skinner was amused to feel both desire and shame stirring in him at once. It was too easy to remember the insanity of the night before, the feel of her soft arms surrounding him, the gentle cadence of her sleep breathing.

There was a faint smile on Scully's face as she said, "God, Nancy Drew books. I haven't thought of them in years." She sipped at her coffee, the color of caramel from the cream she had added. "I'd lie in bed on Saturday mornings as a girl, devouring the Nancy Drews I brought home from the library. There's just one thing that strikes me as odd about those books, now that I'm old enough to look at them with an analytical eye."

"What's that?" he asked.

Her expression was serious for someone discussing the works of Nancy Drew. "Nancy was always being abducted by the bad guys, usually knocked out with chloroform and bound and gagged. Don't you think that as a grown woman she'd have one hell of a case of PTSD?"

Skinner had to bark out a laugh at that, but at the same time he envisioned the video capture of Scully in the back seat of Duane Barry's car, mouth gagged and eyes wide in abject terror. He wanted to take her hand at that moment, but was too aware of the risks. The hotel was crawling with press and other agents, not to mention Mulder. Instead he asked, "Does it ever get to you?"

Turning her cup this way and that, she said, "Of course it does. It all gets to me, sooner or later."

"I'm sorry."

She said, shrugging, "It's the life I chose when I joined the Bureau. I never asked for an easy life."

"Am I interrupting something?" said a male voice and startled, Skinner and Scully looked up to see Mulder.

For a moment Skinner had to hate Mulder, hate him for the time he was able to spend with Scully, the ease in which he dealt with her.

Scully shook her head. "I was having coffee and Director Skinner was kind enough to join me for a moment."

"Sit down with us and have a drink," Skinner said. "We should discuss this case."

Mulder sat down and ordered a mineral water from the blowsy blonde waitress, seemingly entranced by her backside as she retreated from the table to the back of the lounge. Skinner gave him a sidelong glance, wondering if the younger agent suspected anything untoward. Scully was the picture of composure, calmly sipping her coffee, not a hair out of. He, on the other hand, was on the verge of breaking out into a nervous sweat, unable to forget the softness of Scully's skin and the brush of her silken hair against his bare chest.

Clearing his suddenly dry throat, Skinner said, "Mueller has his bail hearing on Monday morning. It's expected to be quite high."

"There goes the speedboat and Winnebago," Mulder said.

Skinner ignored that comment. "He goes before OPR on Tuesday. I spoke to him briefly this morning. He offered no explanation besides, 'Blood is thicker than water.'"

Scully rolled her blue eyes.

"You've done some fine work here, agents. I can't think of many who could have uncovered Mueller's culpability."

Mulder and Scully both smiled, looking faintly embarrassed as they always did on the rare occasions he praised them.

Skinner rose. "Call and book us a flight out in the morning. Our work is done here." Nodding at his agents, he strode off, only one thought paramount in his mind.

Would she come to him tonight?

\------------

Skinner met some of the local honchos at a barbecue joint for dinner. Mulder and Scully may have been able to ignore local law enforcement, but it was his job to build connections and keep the lines of communication freely flowing.

After several hours in a room full of cigarette smoke and the odor of charred pork, his head was pounding by the time he returned to the hotel. He considered stopping by Scully's room but quickly thought the better of it. It was one thing to go there the night before; he had come on the behest of business. This was different, he had intent. Shaking his beleaguered head, he went to his own room and headed to the bathroom for aspirin and a hot shower.

Feeling foolish, he lay on his bed in bathrobe, waiting. Waiting to see if she'd come.

His mind replayed every nuance and moment of the brief conversation he'd had with Scully down in the lobby lounge, searching for a sign, a flicker of flirtation or recognition of the night before. To his dismay, he found nothing. Scully had been her usual self--straightforward, forthright and a tiny bit humorous. The grief and sorrow that had shadowed her delicate features the night before had been nowhere in evidence.

Scully was a master of disguise, he now knew. Now he understood the wealth of emotion running beneath her placid exterior.

It all boiled down to one question, really. Would she come to him?

He had no idea.

Skinner dozed of to the blare and blather of ESPN. Briefly, he dreamed that he reached out with his right hand to touch the marble-smooth expanse of Scully's bare back. The minute he made contact with her flesh, his hand was seared with an intense burst of heat that ran up his arm to the shoulder. With a gasp, he sat up, blinking in the unfamiliar surroundings of his hotel room.

For an instant, he thought the sound was his own rapidly beating heart.

No. It was a knocking at the door, a light tapping coming from the other side.

It was Scully.

  
**Part IV- Coalesce**

_I don't think I'm being manipulated._  
But to do something one can't do anything about  
as if by one's own will  
is comical, sad and yet peaceful.  
While lying by you like this,  
waiting for our breathing to calm down.  
What were they-  
those smooth, hot and endless things?  
Just because those odd things touched each other,  
even my heart relaxed and breathed deeply,  
my eyes looked at the starless darkness,  
my ears heard moans that could not form words,  
and I was about to melt and cease to be,  
when you became unfathomably gentle and rich,  
and in the void where any relation between persons doesn't catch up,  
the very thing of this world,  
trying to be born, spurted out of me.  
Out of this total silence now  
what can I begin to say?  
I simply rise to my feet in the darkness, for a glass of  
water.

_Tanikawa Shuntaro_

Scully stood in the doorway, small in her bulky blue winter coat, holding a paper wrapped bottle in her hands. "Hello," she said, looking fearlessly into his eyes.

"Come inside," Skinner said, wondering if he'd truly awakened from his dream.

She hung her coat in the closet and fumbled with the bottle, drawing it out from its wrapper. "I went out and got some wine, a bottle of Cabernet. I can't guarantee how good it is. Little Rock isn't much of a wine town."

Taking the bottle from her, his hand briefly brushed against hers and electricity shot up his arm, making him nearly drop the bottle. "I don't have a bottle opener," he said.

"Good thing I was a Girl Scout," Scully said with a sheepish look, "I have a Swiss Army Knife. After being lost in those Florida woods last fall, I learned to never leave home without it."

With surgeon-quick fingers she opened the bottle and poured them each a glass in the thick Holiday Inn tumblers. Skinner sipped at the Cabernet. It was a bit sour but all in all, not a horrible wine. "I didn't know if you'd come tonight," he said.

She moved a bit closer and he caught a whiff of her lemony perfume. "I didn't know if I would, either."

He tried for some semblance of restraint, difficult when all the blood was busy rushing south from his brain. "This is a dangerous situation," he said quietly. "I could lose my job over this, Mulder could find out, our enemies..."

The softness of her young hand brushed over his scalp and reached back to toy with the hair on the back of his head. "We can be discreet," she whispered. "No one has to know."

That was the fundamental problem, he thought. He wanted to crow to the world that this frighteningly beautiful, tremendously brilliant and eminently fuckable woman wanted to be with him. How could he keep such a triumph, such a joy to himself? His lips found the baby-tender flesh of her neck and he breathed in her personal perfume of almond and lemon balm. "I don't even know what name to call you by now," he muttered.

She tipped her head back. "Just Scully is fine," she said, half-moaning as his tongue reached behind her earlobe. "Only my family calls me Dana any more."

Her hands were busy unknotting the cord of his bathrobe and he saw that that night was a mirror image of the night before when he had come to her, fully dressed and had unwrapped her bathrobe. Scully drew the flannel off his shoulders and it fell to the floor. She gasped.

"What?" he said, feeling self-conscious in his nudity.

She smiled roguishly. "My God, you're beautiful."

Beautiful. In all his life he had never been called that word. His cock twitched in appreciation as she trailed her fingers down the length of his chest. Kneeling and pressing her mouth to his stomach, she said, "And what do I call you now? Walter seems strange to me and Sir is just too kinky in this situation."

Skinner smiled, nerves dancing as her tongue found the dimple of his bellybutton. "Skinner it is," he said and twined his fingers in her bright hair.

Cool hands pushed his briefs down and she gasped, "Oh my." His knees buckled is he felt the heat of her mouth surround his cock. He had to reach out and grasp the desk chair for support as her wet tongue swirled around his head.

My God was the only thought that was able to penetrate his thickened brain as he involuntarily shut his eyes and allowed himself to bask in the sheer pleasure of her mouth and tongue nimbly working him. He heard himself gasping and panting and wanted to pull away from her and bury himself in her depths, but he could not summon the strength. Harder and harder he gripped the chair until he feared the bones in his hands would snap. The suction of her skilled mouth increased and for a flash he feared he might black out from the wonder of it. With a low groan through his clenched jaw he came, an explosion of color and sound that lurched him so far forward he nearly collapsed on the woman kneeling before him.

Reluctantly he opened his eyes to see her, still fully dressed, the smile of the cat that ate the proverbial canary on her face. Scully kissed each of his still trembling thighs. "Did you like that?" she asked.

Somehow he was able to find the strength to tug her up and push her onto the waiting bed. "Need you even ask?" he growled.

Scully raised her arms over head and stretched like a cat after a bowl of cream. "Just making sure I'm appreciated."

Skinner joined her on the bed and quickly stripped her of her turtleneck and pants, so that she lay before him clad only in a white lace bra and matching panties. "I'm the one who needs to say 'Oh my'", he whispered. "You're perfect." He unhooked her bra and drew it aside.

"Go on, tell me another fairy tale."

His mouth, seemingly of its own accord, found her already hardened nipples. He took his time lavishing each of the dark coral peaks with his mouth, rejoicing in each of the moans of pleasure his attentions emitted. Scully struggled off her own panties.

As his hand parted her thighs and found her springy curls wet already, she arched her back for him. She arched her back and sighed, a long drawn-out sigh of delight. Skinner ran his fingers along her slippery satin interior, thinking, I forgot how this feels. I forgot what a wonder a woman is. His index finger found her swollen clitoris and circled slowly and she elicited a gasp of, "Yes, that's it..."

He wanted more. He wanted to lose himself in her, bury his face in her warmth and stay there for the remainder of the night, just to hear her making those beautiful sounds. Crouching between her bent knees he took his first tentative taste of Scully with the tip of his tongue. Lord, she was delicious, more complex than the finest cognac, richer than a Cuban cigar, spicier than curry. More, he wanted more.

With tongue and fingers he worshipped her sweetness, lapping her juices like a man devouring his last meal. Scully's cries became higher and louder and her hands firmly gripped his shoulders as she guided his movements. Forever, he thought, I want to make her this happy forever. Suddenly her entire body went stiff and still and she came with fierce contractions that clutched at the fingers he had buried in her as she ground herself into his face.

Gradually, her movements slowed and stilled and with a little regret he lifted his head from her. She sat up and ran her hands through her mussed tangle of hair, her face rosy. "Come here, you," she whispered.

Skinner joined her at the head of the messy bed, realizing he and Scully hadn't even kissed yet that night. Trust them to do everything backwards. Mouths and tongues met, tasting of each other's pleasure, still hot, still hungry. I can't get enough of you, he frantically thought, what the hell do you do to me, Scully?

To his surprise and delight, he found himself growing hard again. Her hand found him and firmly squeezed and he lightly bit at her shoulder at the sensation. "I'm glad to see you're a man who keeps himself in shape," she said and they laughed together.

Scully scrambled for a condom and slipped it on him with practiced doctor's hands. "Lie down," she ordered and he mutely obeyed, enjoying the power reversal they had in bed. In the world he was her superior but in the privacy of the hotel room he was entirely at her service.

With one swift movement of her compact body he was inside her and they both gasped at the sensation. Scully crouched over him, gently rocking, her mouth open and a look of sheer wonder on her face. Slowly, agonizingly slowly she moved his cock in and out of her. It was torture, he thought as his mouth again found hers, but the best kind, the kind of torture he could happily endure for the rest of his natural life. And again she came, her small hands pressing the sides of his face as she cried out. Those sounds and the knowledge that he had pleased her were enough to take him, too, over the edge and beyond, biting his lip in the effort to keep himself under control.

Forever, he again thought, as they pulled apart. This cannot end.

For a long time they lay together, waiting for their breathing to slow.

Scully kissed him on the neck and sat up. "I have to go to the bathroom," she said. "Why don't you pour us some more wine?"

He got rid of the condom and went to the desk for the bottle of wine. In the half-light from the bedside lamp he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the dresser. For the first time in many, many years he looked happy. He looked like a man satisfied.

The bathroom door opened and Scully walked out, glorious in her lush nudity. She came up behind him and rested her head on his broad back. "Thank you," she whispered into his skin.

He turned around to face her. "I should be thanking you."

She picked up a glass of the wine and took a small sip, shaking her head. "No, you don't understand. You saved me."

"Saved you?" he asked, not fully understanding what she meant.

Scully moved to the bed and sat up against the pillows. She bit her lower lip, as if thinking hard. "Last night I was in a very dark place."

Skinner brushed his lips against the line where her forehead and hair met. "Tell me about it," he said.

At that moment he wanted to know everything about her, to know her woman's heart.

She slid to a lying position on her side and shook her head. He joined her so they were face to face in the dim room. "I'm not good at sharing myself," she said in a small voice. "I'm just no good at it."

"Why don't you try?" He squeezed her hand. "You can trust me, Scully." Yet he remembered that night in Mulder's apartment when she trained her gun on him and ordered him to sit on the couch, the fear and hatred alive in her eyes. That was a long time ago, he said to himself.

She issued a long, trailing sigh and drank more wine. "It was too soon," she said.

"What was?" Was she speaking of their coming together?

"This case, the children," she said in a nearly inaudible voice.

Emily, he thought. Her daughter, created without her knowledge or consent and now gone. Sometimes he wondered how she bore it all. Now he watched her walls crumble a bit and his heart ached for her trials.

She continued, fortified by another sip of the wine. "I've never enjoyed performing autopsies on children. Death doesn't bother me, I've never gotten upset at working with the dead, otherwise I never would have chosen pathology. It's just that working with children, it's so...unnatural." Scully's voice was ragged with remembered pain. "I had to perform an autopsy on a little boy last night, a beautiful child. He looked like an angel, peaceful and innocent in his repose, despite the bruises and the blood.

"But as I cut him open, I couldn't get her face out of my mind. Another lost child." She buried her face in her hands. "It was just too soon."

Skinner bent down and kissed her eyelids, her face. He was not surprised to see she wasn't crying.

"I'm so sorry," he said, wishing for better, more comforting words to soothe her.

She lifted her face and blinked rapidly, as trying to keep the tears at bay. "No, I'm sorry to burden you like this."

Skinner groaned in frustration. "Don't you see?" he said, rubbing her back with his hand. "I want you to feel able to tell me these things." Somewhere he heard the omnipresent winter rain beating against the windowpanes and he shivered.

"Sometimes I just want to quit, to walk away from all this," she said.

He rose on his elbow. "Why don't you?"

"I don't know," she said quietly, "Something's keeping me here. I guess I own the quest as much as he does. There are things I need to know before I leave." She didn't need to explain who she meant when she said the word he. Mulder. He had been forgetting him all night long, but he existed, just one floor up.

It wouldn't be possible to always ignore Mulder's presence.

"Let me," he whispered to her, "Let me help you forget for a night."

Forget the children, forget the terror, forget the things that had been done to her. He wanted her to forget it all, if only for a little while.

He had to wonder if she thought of Mulder when he was with her, if she ever thought of him in a sexual way. It was a question he didn't dare ask.

His hands reached for her and she sighed against his shoulder.

\------------------

Somewhere in the middle of the night, he awoke to the sound of her tears. He was on his side with his back to her, but he could make out her soft, muffled sobs over the sound of rain on the glass. Desperately he wanted to go to her, to ease her raw pain, but he couldn't move a muscle. He just  
couldn't invade her privacy like that, to diminish her strength. He knew she'd hate him for it.

After a few minutes the sobs faded into even sleep breathing and he, too, drifted down into sleep.

In the morning he woke and reflexively reached for her, but she was gone.

\-------------------

And now, so many months later, it is too easy for him to see that he made his pivotal error that night in Little Rock as she cried in his bed and he failed to comfort her. Perhaps if he had reached for her and held her as she wept, the tenor of their relationship would have changed, become something more personal. Something beyond the realm of sex and friendship in her eyes.

One of the hardest things a man has to do is to admit that his love is not returned. He can hope that one day it will come, but for it to be so one-sided is torture.

For seven months he waited to see if she'd grow to love him as he loved her.

She liked him, she respected and trusted him, but the love never came.

Patiently he waited, until one day she admitted her love for the other. She sat on her couch, the tears he had never seen before running down her face, and nodded when he asked if she loved Mulder.

He never doubted for an instant that the day would come. He knew it from almost the beginning, when his dreams were dashed on the way home to D.C.

_  
_ **Part V- Stepping Forward**

_Reach me a gentian, give me a torch!_  
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower  
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness  
even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September  
to the sightless realm were darkness is awake upon the dark  
and Persephone is herself but a voice  
or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark  
of the arms Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,  
among the splendor of torches of darkness, shedding  
darkness on the lost  
bride and her groom.

_D.H. Lawrence_  
  
On the plane, Skinner tilted his chair back as far as it would go, closed his eyes and allowed himself to dream.

He thought of an impossible time and space where somehow it was not a crime to love Scully. His dream unfolded before his weary eyes in soothing tones of pastel, as hazy and partially formed as a painting by Bonnard or Monet, and just as beautiful.

In his waking dream, Scully left the Bureau and found herself a job at a hospital, something that allowed her to sleep in peace at night. He asked her marry him and she did, she did, a quiet ceremony with her in a simple white silk dress, a white gardenia tucked behind her ear. A life together, a whole life shared, for richer or poorer, for good times and bad, through sickness and health, until death parted them. Making love, buying a house, perhaps a child or two. He wasn't too old to become a first-time father. He saw a little boy with dark hair and her light eyes, running up to him at the end of the day, smelling of cookies and apple juice. He wanted to spend every remaining year by her side until he died with the gentle touch of her hand gripped around his.

Skinner was a man who dealt firmly in the realm of reality. He was not a fanciful man, but for once in his life, he allowed himself to dream, and to hope.

Really, he didn't ask for too much.

He wondered if he should begin to pray again. He hadn't prayed in a long time, since Vietnam, when he lost his belief somewhere in the jungles near Da Nang. Trying to pray for a minute, he felt silly, praying there in the plane, like a man afraid the plane would crash. It wasn't the right and proper time to begin again.

Opening his eyes, he stared out of the window at the clouds running beneath the plane, amazed at the multitude of emotions running through him. Scully just made him feel everything, all at once. She had the singular ability of making him feel alive, when he had been so sure that part of him was dead and gone. He again felt like the young man who had stood in a parking lot and watched Sharon shake  
snowflakes from her hair.

Later, he moved to the back of the plane to use the bathroom. Seven rows behind sat Mulder and Scully. Mulder had his glasses on, reading what looked to be a psychology journal. To his right was Scully at the window seat, wearing a pair of headphones and asleep with her head resting on Mulder's shoulder.

Skinner paused before the two agents. Mulder looked up from his reading and smiled in embarrassment. "She often does this on planes," he said, running his right hand through his thick brown hair. "Scully hates to fly so she takes two Benadryls, puts on some Mozart and conks out for  
the whole thing."

"I see," Skinner said dumbly, noticing that on the armrest, Mulder's large hand was draped over Scully's. He pulled his eyes away with difficulty and made his way to the bathroom, which was blessedly unoccupied.

Shutting the door behind him, Skinner's knees buckled and for a moment he feared he might vomit. A light sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead.

What a fool he was, dreaming away about Scully.

He might be the one who had her attention and her body, but her soul truly belonged to Mulder. It was difficult to explain why he knew that from witnessing the little tableau Mulder and Scully made on the plane, but he did. Something about the trust and vulnerability Scully showed in sleeping on her partner's shoulder spoke volumes to him. And he didn't really need to explain it, anyhow. He just knew.

Washing his hands in the tiny sink, he sighed the sigh of defeat.

Back in his seat, he understood it was just a matter of time and he vowed to make the most of each moment he was allowed with her. Then he sat up and again looked out at the clouds fleeting along. No, he thought, I won't let it happen. It can't happen. I'll fight tooth and nail and in the end, she will love me.

If sheer force of will could make something happen, it would certainly become true. She would love him.

\----------------

He paces in front of his living room windows, watching early autumn dusk fall on the sky in tones of gold and red, purple streaking through in some spots. He can't believe he spent the entire day brooding about her, but perhaps he needed to do that, instead of his usual modus operendi, which is to simply work too much.

At the window he whispers, "I loved you, Scully."

He's never used the past tense before. It pains him to use it, but he knows it's time to walk away.

Stepping away from the window he goes to dress for his date with Caroline Lohmann, a woman he met in the music department at Barnes and Noble. They both reached for the same copy of "Don Giovanni" and ended up in a spirited discussion about Maria Callas over coffee. When they parted an hour or so later, she asked him if he were single, if he were straight, and if he'd like to have dinner with her.

He answered yes on all three counts.

She's nothing like Scully, he thinks, while putting on a fresh shirt and picking out an appropriate tie. Caroline is tall and slender, dark curly hair down to her shoulders, forty-two and divorced, with a ten year-old daughter. She's an art history professor at Georgetown and laughed delightedly when she found out he was an FBI agent.

He only knows the most basic facts about Caroline, the bare skeleton of the woman who lives, but he wants to find out. He thinks he just might be ready for it.

Fully dressed and ready to go, he stops for one last look out the window. The moon is full and golden and casts shadows of the trees on the sidewalk below. It's a beautiful night for walking.

With a deep breath, he takes two steps forward and walks away.


	9. Saturday Morning, Two Breakfasts

She's always hated mornings, always faced waking up with the dread of a prisoner awaiting his date with the electric chair. As a child she loved getting up to see the presents under the tree on Christmas morning. Easter, with the basket full of brightly colored eggs and chocolate bunnies, wasn't bad either. Those were just about the only two mornings she could handle.

Now as an adult, she slams the alarm off and slowly sits up, squinting into her dark bedroom. She always thinks, another day, another dead body. It isn't until midway through her second cup of coffee that she begins to feel anything near human again. They know her by name at the Daily Grind just down the street; know she takes the extra large cup of Italian Roast, with just a little room for cream at the top.

This, however, is the good kind of morning, she thinks, as her eyes open. Sun is pouring through the blinds and glows golden on the freshly painted cream walls. It's a rare Saturday that she doesn't have to work. They just returned from a case in Tallahassee, Florida on Thursday evening and all that is left to do is the paperwork.

God, Saturdays are great. The last free Saturday they had, she and Mulder spent the day painting his bedroom, trying to make it a habitable space once again. The air still faintly smells of the paint, a strangely comforting smell to her as she rolls unto her stomach. Forty-eight hours of freedom, she gleefully thinks. Sweet, sweet freedom.

The best part, yes, the best part of waking up on a work free Saturday morning is waking to his mouth planting a trail of wet kisses down her bare back.

Mmm-hmm, it's going to be a good day today.  She wants to turn around to kiss Mulder, but decides to prolong the agony, to simply let the heat slowly build by grinding her buttocks into him, to feel his toothpaste-fresh breath drift across her face.

Toothpaste fresh? Damn him, he cheated and brushed his teeth!

Scully gives into temptation and rolls over, pokes him in his considerable nose. "You brushed your teeth," she  
grumbles.

A chuckle emanates from deep in his chest. "The Thai curry," he says.

She pulls away from his octopus arms and stumbles to the bathroom, unwilling to kiss her man with a mouth that tastes of a night of Bangkok debauchery. Crest is a beautiful invention, she thinks, furiously scrubbing her teeth while sitting on the toilet at the same time. She's a master at timesaving morning techniques.

Back in the bedroom she pauses to take in the sight before her. Mulder, in his bed, beneath the comforter she got him for his birthday, in his bare-assed glory. It's better than presents and chocolate bunnies combined.

Sliding back under the warm covers, she tousles his dark hair. He has fallen asleep again, but he'll wake up. Oh yes, he'll wake up.

They are still a new enough couple that sometimes she awakens in surprise to see him lying next to her. She  
thinks, what the hell are you doing in my bed, Mulder?

A few times, in the very beginning, she thought she was waking up with Skinner, and the brush of Mulder's hair against her back shocked her into realization. I'm with Mulder now, she had to think. It always filled her with  
surprising joy.

Joy. It is a new emotion to behold, and she's learning to appreciate its red, orange and yellow colors.

She crouches over his still form and applies a gentle kiss to each silken eyelid, watching them flutter awake from her touch. His lips twist into a grin. "Teeth all clean and sparkly now?"

Baring her teeth, she growls.

Her hand crawls up his thigh. "I love Saturday mornings," she says in his ear.

"Not half so much as I do." His large hand grasps her at the back of the neck and pulls her mouth to his. The first kiss of the day is the nicest, she thinks, as his tongue plunges into her mouth and finds her own. She still remembers their first, surprising kiss in her doorway, his lips wet from the rain, his mouth tasting of the dark flavors of coffee and chocolate. She had thought at the time that his mouth probably tasted that wonderful from something he had eaten. Now she knows his mouth naturally tastes that way. Delicious and sweet.

She could spend hours like this. They did, just a few weeks ago while out on a case in Iowa. It was a crisp autumn evening outside of Davenport and she parked the car off a rural road, surrounded only by the dark shapes of tress and the tapestry of a starry sky overhead. She unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for him and they spent a few hours just kissing and touching in the moonlight, while the car radio sang the latest bouncy pop hits. Feeling sixteen again, she imagined racing home in time for her curfew, lest she face her strict father's wrath.

With each kiss becoming deeper and hungrier, she feels her own arousal rising like a fever in the middle of the night. She's utterly perplexed to explain what Mulder does to her. She's known pleasure so extreme she thought she might go into cardiac arrest right then and there, she's had lovers skilled at eliciting shattering screams from her, but never this bone-deep pleasure. Never this thorough satisfaction.

It must be because they love each other, she muses as she nips at his sleep-salty neck. Never having been in love before him, she didn't know the difference.

Did Skinner feel this way when they were in bed together? She knows he loved her.

No, it's not the time to think about him. Guilt has no business being in this bedroom right now.

Her mouth travels a lazy journey down his long torso, stopping off for brief visits at her favorite areas: the small spheres of his hard nipples, the ridges of his ribs, the darkened trail of hair that runs from his belly button to his pubic hair. "The Treasure Trail," Melissa told her it was called when she was fourteen or fifteen. She remembers her outraged giggles at hearing the term.

And of course, she reaches the best spot, her favorite new stomping grounds, Mulder's blood-stiffened penis. Funny how she worked so closely with him for so many years and never stopped to consider that he had one of those hiding underneath his suits. Sure, she had actually seen it a time or two, but it was under rather harrowing conditions and she herself had been in her full-blown mode of doctor's detachment.

The first time she became aware of the reality of Mulder's cock, not as a hazy part of a late-night fantasy, but as the flesh belonging to the man himself, was that rainy night in July when he came to her.

For a long time they sat on her couch, finishing a bottle of Shiraz left over from the night before, attempting to untangle the delicate threads of their relationship. Finally, she threw up her hands. "Mulder," she said, her feet tapping on the rug with anxiety. "Enough talk."

With that, he pulled her onto his lap and once again their mouths merged into a long, sliding kiss, redolent of chocolate and Australian wine. Suddenly she felt it, pressing stiffly against her right buttock. My God, she thought as her mouth pressed harder into his, Mulder has a penis. Mulder has a penis and I made him hard.

She couldn't help but throw her head back in a laugh of wonder and triumph.

Fun is what has been lacking in her life for too many years. Despite her ambition and drive in college, she knew when to amputate her nose from the end of a book and have a good time. Dana and a pack of her girlfriends would make their hair big with gobs of styling mousse and head for Saturday night parties at someone's crappy little apartment. They'd drink some beer, dance to New Order and Depeche Mode, engage in a little flirting with skinny boys dressed in black. Laughter. She remembers the laughter the most, barricading herself in the bathroom with Sheila and Kate, howling at what a fool Sheila was making over herself for some dorky guy. Laughing so hard the blue mascara ran down her face and her sides ached.

After college she laughed less with each passing year. For many years she has no memory of laughing at all.

With Mulder now her lover, it's a different story. Their lives are still a desperate quest for the truth, but when they are alone together they can shed their layers of gravity and relax into more carefree versions of themselves. He teases her and she actually smiles, rather than giving him the evil eye. She tickles him, just to see his face contort into laughter. Some nights they camp out in bed with take-out and simply tell each other stories. Scully has even learned not to bitch about crumbs in the  
bed.

This is a new lesson she's learned, that love is not always a deadly serious game. Love can be reading the comics aloud, or burning the toast, or singing off-key with the theme to Cheers.

If her relationship with Mulder were to end today, she'd still be eternally grateful for that lesson.

Her hand grasps Mulder at the root and she squeezes, hearing nonsense syllables beginning to come from the head of the bed. She loves to reduce her brilliant partner to a gibbering idiot with just a touch and the flick of her tongue. Opening her mouth, she takes his cock in as far as if will go as he continues to writhe and moan. What a kick it is to make him feel so good, to hold the power to please him. Lazily, as if working on a particularly tasty cherry Popsicle, she licks and sucks at him, feeling the blood gathering between her thighs, her own arousal painfully mounting with each motion.

Mulder's hands, which have been buried in her hair, pull her head up, so that he slips out of her mouth. "What are you-" she tries to ask.

His eyes are still clenched shut. "Turn around, Scully."

She knows what he wants to do and her heart skitters at the thought. She shifts around so that she is lying on her side, her head level with his crotch. A gasp slips from her mouth as his rough hand parts her thighs and she feels his warm breath blowing on her curls. Then, oh yes, the wetness of his tongue finds her clitoris and her back stiffens as if jolted by electricity. Oh yes, he knows just what she likes, light teasing circles, not too hard, not too soft, simply the perfect rhythm. "Mulder," is all that can come out of her mouth as her brain is occupied with the task of processing the pleasure invading the lower half of her body.

Somehow she is able to remember to bend her head to him and again take his cock into her mouth. With a slide of her tongue along the tip, he increases the pressure of his tongue on her clit and she, too, sucks harder, trying her best to keep up as her body is slowly being driven insane by his tongue and fingers. Mulder is twitching his hips now, a sure sign he's close to coming, shoving himself so hard into her mouth she has to grasp his buttocks to control him. She, too, is dangerously close, precariously teetering on the edge. Suddenly she feels his balls contract and with a muffled moan he comes, emptying himself into her mouth.

With a swiftness that is impressive for a man who has just had an orgasm, he flips her onto her back, pulls her knees up and bends his face to her. Her head hanging half off the bed, she throws her hands over her eyes to block out the sunshine, block out everything but the sensation of his tongue lapping at her, his fingers sliding in and out, block out everything that isn't pleasure.

And then she screams.

No, it isn't quite a scream, it's a sound that lies somewhere in the nebulous area between a scream and a growl, the definite cry of an animal escaping her lungs. Whatever it is, she's feeling wonderful.

There's nothing to hide from Mulder. Dignity doesn't even come into play with him. After all, he's seen her at her lowest, lying in a hospital bed with her eyes taped, and later in another bed, hollowed out by the cancer. He's watched her aim her weapon at him and fire. He's even seen her cry.

She can be anything, it just doesn't matter. He's going to love her all the same.

Unconditional.

Now she understands the meaning of the word.

With heavy limbs she crawls to the head of the bed and settles herself in the crook of his arm. Her hand reaches out to stroke his chest, covered with a light sheen of sweat. "Morning," she sighs.

He kisses the top of her head. "And a fine morning it is, room service and all."

"This is nice," she mumbles into his shoulder, sleep threatening to overtake her.

"Scully?" The sound of his voice makes her open her eyes once again.

"Yes?"

His hand brushes her cheek. "I just want you to know that I'm happy."

She smiles, understanding the impact of his words. Happiness has been an elusive emotion for Mulder. She's actually surprised he can recognize what it is. Briefly moving her lips against his, she whispers, "I'm glad. I am, too."

His stomach chooses to speak for him at that moment, a reverberating grumble. She pokes him at the source of the sound. "You hungry?"

Mulder laughs. "I don't know why, I already had my breakfast."

"Why don't we go to the kitchen and try to devise some breakfast?"

"Um, Scully," he sheepishly grins, "unless you want tuna or beer for breakfast, my pantry is kind of bare right now."

Typical. Mulder doesn't know how to treat himself well. She wrinkles her nose at the thought of a tuna sandwich. "We'd better go to Michael's, then."

He yawns. "Ugh, that requires too much effort."

Her own stomach begins to growl and rumble at the thought of French toast and a big cup of Sumatran. She tugs at his hand. "Come on, time to hit the showers, Mulder."

With a hearty groan he sits up and stretches. "A shower for two?"

She stands up and tugs him off the bed. "Conservation of water is an important part of saving the environment," she deadpans.

Her own bathroom may have more fancy-smelling soaps and shampoos, instead of the bottle of Prell and the bar of Coast she must contend with here, but showering is much more pleasant when Mulder is there to scrub her back. He makes happy sounds as she massages the green shampoo into his scalp and she snorts with laughter when he gets some of the bubbles into his mouth and starts furiously spitting out the soap.

Fun, she thinks. I could get used to this.

Out of the shower she filches Mulder's blue oxford shirt from the night before, giving it a surreptitious sniff. It smells just like him, a little of his sweat, a hint of aftershave and her own perfume.

He turns from his own dressing and smiles to see her in his ridiculously large shirt. "That's awfully sexy on you," he says.

"I feel like I'm wearing my boyfriend's letter jacket."

"Ah, the young Dana Scully, sitting in the stands at the football game. I'll bet you were cute."

She rolls her eyes. "I had a mouthful of braces."

"So did I. We would have been a cute couple."

Impatiently, she puts her hands on her hips. "Are we going to go eat or what?"

Side by side they walk the four short blocks to Michael's Cafe. Holding hands in public would be tempting fate more than they already are, but it doesn't really matter to her. She couldn't feel any closer to him than right now, even if their hands were tightly gripped together. She's wearing his shirt, smelling like his soap, her body is still humming from his touch. It's enough.

It's one of those magical Indian summer days when a sweater isn't even needed and the light seems a deeper gold than usual. People are out on the sidewalks in droves, trying to enjoy the last gasp of fine weather. Couples push babies in strollers, joggers rush by, and dogs obediently trot alongside their masters. A beautiful day and she and Mulder are a part of it.

Scully lifts her face to the warmth of the sun and grins. She now knows to appreciate these brief flashes of  
contentment.

At Michael's they get a table on the sidewalk outside and peruse the many options of the menu. Eating breakfast here is like making love with Mulder- which pleasure to choose when they are all equally enticing?

The waiter ambles by and they order. Blueberry-banana pancakes for Mulder and Scully goes with her original choice of French toast. At this restaurant they soak stale baguette pieces overnight in a mixture of milk, eggs and Grand Marnier, turning it into something closer to a bread pudding that regular French toast. Bacon for the both of them, and of course large, steaming mugs of strong coffee.

The food arrives in record time and Mulder jokes that perhaps the staff has a food replicator in back like on Star Trek. She laughs so hard she nearly chokes on her mouthful of food. This sends Mulder into his own gales of laughter and near choking.

"Hey," he says, putting his fork down, face suddenly gone serious. "I love you, Scully." Gently, he pushes a lock  
of hair out of her eyes.

It isn't often that they say those words to one another. To do so would soften the impact.

She feels surprisingly shy, casting her eyes downward towards her plate. "I love you, too."

At that moment a chill runs through her body, to her very bones. Her mother would say a ghost was walking over her grave. Reflexively, she turns her head and across the street she spots a man jogging down the street. A tall, muscular, bald man.

Skinner.

No, it can't be. That would mean that he most likely saw her here with Mulder.

He sees them nearly every day, but in a work setting. She knows how the sight of her having breakfast with Mulder would hurt Skinner. That's the last thing she wants to do.

No, it wasn't him, she tells herself. Her mind is playing tricks, unwilling to accept being happy.

Mulder looks alarmed at the expression on her face. "What is it?" he asks.

She turns to her lover and smiles. "Nothing," she says. "It was nothing at all."

After breakfast they stroll back down the street, full, happy and caffeinated. Mulder touches her shoulder. "What do you want to do today?"

She smiles and shrugs. "I'm not used to free time. Maybe see a movie?"

A mischievous expression moves across his face. "Could you go for a little nap right now?"

He has a one-track mind. Then again, so does she.

"I'll race you to your building," she says.

And they're off.


	10. Grenadine

Skinner taps his fingers on the varnished wood surface of the bar and contemplates ordering another Knob Creek. After a few more minutes he concedes defeat and signals the bartender.

Caroline is late.

He knew she might be, since she had a faculty meeting and she'd explained how they constantly ran overtime. Still, he can't help but be a little annoyed as he sits in this faux English pub, surrounded by expensive suits and cigar smoke, Billie Holiday moaning of her lost love over the sound system.

The bartender sets down the second drink and Skinner pushes some money at him, letting his mouth fill with the smoky flavor of bourbon. The taste reminds him of his days with the Atlanta field office, genteel evenings on the deck sipping bourbon and listening to crickets as the stars came out.

He hears merry peals of laughter to his right. Turning his head, he notices that the barstools next to him have been taken by two young women, expensively groomed and burnished-looking with their buttery golden hair falling over their cashmere sweaters. The bartender stops in front of them. "What are you having tonight, ladies?"

The girl nearest him tilts her head in thought. "Mmm...I think a tequila sunrise."

Her friend giggles. "A tequila sunrise in the winter, Lucy?"

She nods affirmatively. "Why not? It'll get me in the mood for our trip to Cabo."

"Oooh, that does sound good. Make it two."

The bartender nods his dark head and begins making the drinks. First he scoops ice into two highball glasses. Next, a shot of tequila is poured into each glass and the orange juice after that. He reaches behind him and selects a bottle of Grenadine from the back bar. With deft hands, he tilts the glass and quickly pours some of the red liquid in so it settles on the bottom of the orange juice,  
bleeding up into its namesake sunset.

The Grenadine bottle is placed back in a row of bottles, but Skinner can't take his eyes off it.

*

He emerged from the shower and dried himself, wrapping the white towel around his waist. Striding through the living room, leaving damp footprints on the carpet, he found her standing on the balcony. She was watching the beginning of the sunset, the first streaks of crimson and violet in the July sky. He stepped out into the moist heat of a Virginia summer evening.

Scully turned around and smiled to see him, her face still flushed from lovemaking and her own shower. Her red hair was drying into the soft waves she normally blow-dried straight.

It pleased him to see her wrapped in his blue cotton bathrobe, the hem just touching her ankles. "It's a gorgeous night," she said, gesturing toward the sky.

"Not half as gorgeous as you are."

Her face flushed deeper and she rose on tiptoe to briefly press her lips against his. "You're a shameless flatterer, Walter Skinner."

His hand wrapped around her slender neck and he brought her face to his to kiss her with long sweeps of his tongue in her mouth. Scully tasted like the mint of toothpaste, but underneath it he still could detect a faint hint of sex.

A breeze blew in, lifting her curls and he smelled the smoke from a neighbor's grill. Down the street came the shouting and laughter of kids playing soccer.

It was high summer.

Reluctantly, he pulled away from her. "How about if I fix us a drink?"

When she smiled he could see the fine lines around her blue eyes, eyes that radiated affection, but also an indefinable melancholy. "A drink would be perfect."

Skinner went to the bedroom, stripped off the towel and put on a pair of old jeans. In the kitchen he found a half-full bottle of Sauza, a carton of orange juice and in the deepest recesses of the liquor cabinet, a sticky bottle of Grenadine. Tequila sunrises, he thought, perfect for a summer evening with his redhead.

After fixing the drinks, he grabbed the glasses and brought them out to the balcony. Scully took the glass from him and clinked hers against his. "To summer," she said.

"To summer." Another season we get to spend together.

He put his arm around her and drew her close. Scully took a sip of her drink. "Oh, that's good," she said after a swallow. He remembered earlier in the day when she'd said the very same thing, in a surprised tone, as he held her by her hips and entered her from behind.

"It's kind of a girly drink," he said, watching as the blush of the syrup spread through the juice in his glass.

She brushed a fallen strand of hair out of her eyes. "It reminds me of our first night together."

His heart began to loudly thump. "Except we were drinking screwdrivers that night."

"Still, the drinks were orange and I was wearing a bathrobe." Her lips bloomed into a full grin.

Skinner took a sip of his drink and yes, the taste did bring back that January night in Little Rock, when they first came together. "That was a long time ago."

She reached for his hand and squeezed it. "I remember everything with perfect clarity."

"So do I," he said. All he had to do was shut his eyes and he could summon a three-dimensional recollection of the first time they'd made love. Her gasp as he took her nipple in his mouth, the feel of her strong fingers on his ass as her drove into her, opening his eyes to see her astonished face. The burning realization that he'd irrevocably fallen in love with her.

Again, she sipped her drink. "I think it's the Grenadine that makes this drink so good. It reminds me of my childhood."

"You were drinking tequila sunrises as a kid?"

Scully gave him one of her looks. "No, of course not. But sometimes my parents would have a cocktail party, the room crowded with officers in uniform and their wives all dressed up and glamorous, everyone drinking Manhattans and martinis. My father was always the bartender and he'd make Shirley Temples for us kids." She smiled at the memory, watching the sky. "I loved the taste of the Seven-Up and Grenadine. For a moment I felt like one of the grownups, sophisticated in my party dress, having my own cocktail."

He pictured her in a taffeta dress, sipping a pink Shirley Temple in emulation of her elders. "Grenadine reminds me of you," Skinner said.

She flashed him a curious look. "Why's that?"

His hand began to circle the curve of her breasts under the thin material of the bathrobe. Leaning over, he suckled at the tender flesh of her earlobe. "It's red, it's delicious and sweet," he whispered.

She set her drink down and laid the flat of her warm palm on his chest. "Again with the shameless flattery."

"I'm just trying to get you into bed, Scully."

Her hands began to skim down his chest and stomach until they found the buttons of his jeans, which she hastily unbuttoned. Despite the humid night, he shivered. "All you have to do is ask, Skinner..."

"Come to bed with me," he growled.

"Oh, gladly."

They didn't even make it that far. Two steps in the living room, they collapsed in a tangle of arms, legs, bathrobe and jeans on the carpet.

With unwieldy fingers he unknotted the cord of her robe and spread her legs apart to savor the ripe fruit of her, sweeter and stickier than the Grenadine, made more delicious by her husky groans of delight.

Behind them, through the glass of the balcony door, the sky deepened in color, grenadine red dissolving into royal blue and fading to black.

*

Caroline surprises him with a kiss on his cheek. He shakes his head into alertness and smiles to see her pretty, animated face, her cheeks flushed rose with the cold.

"Daydreaming, Walter?"

"A little," he admits.

She checks her watch and shakes her head apologetically. "I'm so sorry I'm late. Those dreadful meetings..."

"Don't worry about it, I understand."

"We should probably leave if we want to make our reservations."

Skinner sets his drink down and steals one last glance at the bottle of Grenadine. He licks his lips and is almost surprised to find they taste of bourbon, not Scully.

He turns to his new lover and smiles for her benefit.

His only hope is that dinner and a bottle of wine will be enough to banish his ghosts for the rest of the night.

"I'm ready," he says and takes Caroline's hand.

God, he hopes he is.


	11. The Seasons

** _Autumn_ **

The scent of burning leaves drifts into the car as they speed down a New Hampshire highway. Trees alive with color become a blur of gold and red with the motion.

For a brief moment he wants to stop the car and run through a pile of leaves, to hear them crunch under his loafer-clad feet. But he can't.

They're late to interview a witness and besides, Scully is yelling at him.

Perhaps yelling is too strong a word, but she's most definitely angry, lecturing him in her patented schoolmarmish tone, her hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. "You were supposed to meet me at noon. Where were you?"

Chastened, he stares at the dashboard of the Taurus. "I had a lead."

Her lips are drawn together in a thin line. "A lead." She pauses, most likely for maximum effect, and it works. "Why didn't you call?"

She sounds remarkably like his mother, when she'd chew out his father for tracking mud or snow onto her Persian carpets. "I forgot?" he lamely offers.

The car jerks off the road onto the shoulder. Here's his chance, his big opportunity to fling the door open and escape, into the woods, into the leaves. Instead, he finds himself staying to await his judgment.

Scully opens the driver's side door and dashes out and the next thing he sees is her, dwarfed by her beige trench coat, pacing in front of the car. Her hands are balled into fists.

Outside of the car, the crisp October air smells more heavily of the musk of burning leaves. It smells like Saturdays of enforced raking, of getting drunk in the stands at football games, of walking to school in the pre-dawn light. He touches her arm and she whirls around, her hair an aureole of deepest red. "I'm sorry," he says, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

A tiny breath of air escapes her, forming a cloud of steam. "You say you're sorry every time you do this, but nothing changes."

He doesn't know what to say to that. Words have fled.

Another small sigh from her. "Mulder, who am I?"

"Who are you?" He's confused. She has a tricky and deft touch with language, ever able to manipulate it like F. Lee Bailey, able to trap him with the most innocuous of questions. It's a dangerous, dangerous path he's traveling here with her. His heart beats in a staccato tempo and he finds his head beginning to pound in concert with his racing pulse.

"I'm your partner. Let's forget about the other side of our relationship for the moment. " Her voice is even, the words clipped between her white teeth. "I'm your partner and when you go off on your own like that, that tells me that you're not thinking of me as your partner, your equal. You aren't trusting me."

"It was last minute, I wasn't thinking."

Her eyes become sad and exhausted, the little lines radiating from the corners more visible than usual in the midday autumn sunshine. "You don't think, that's the problem. We've discussed this again and again and then you turn around and take off on me. I can't provide you adequate backup when I don't know where you are and what you're doing."

His chest begins to tighten. Accountability, that's what she's asking for.

Scully leans against the car and shoves her hands in the pockets of her coat. "This is my quest, too," she says in a nearly inaudible voice.

"I know." He bows his head.

"Then let me own it. It's not yours now, it's ours. It belongs to me as much as it does you and I don't want you to forget that, not for one second."

Damn her, she's right.

An index finger is raised in warning. "It has to change, now. I'm not going to make you promise me, but I'm telling you, what happened today, what has happened so many times in the past will happen no longer."

She doesn't need to speak the threat, it hides between her carefully chosen words.

Ditch me again and I'm leaving.

And that, to him, would mean the end of everything.

Damn her, she's right.

He smooths the hair that is blown by the wind across her forehead. "What can I say to make this right?"

Impossibly blue eyes lift to meet his. "You can't say anything. All you can do is the right thing."

She pulls away from him and gets back in the driver's seat, starts the car.

For a moment he stares at the technicolor leaves hanging on the maples, just waiting to dry enough to drop on the ground, where they will be swept away by winter. Once more, he considers bolting away from there, to run in the leaves where he will be free, answerable to no one, untethered,scraping his way across the floor of the forest.

Instead, he gets in the car and he and Scully drive off to the interview, passing more fall colors on the way.

**  
_Winter_ **

The sun is just setting behind Lone Mountain when she decides to wake him. He's sprawled out on the puffy beige couch, his head propped by several pillows, a plaid wool afghan thrown across his legs. For a minute she wavers in her decision to awaken him; his face is so at peace. Still, she  
knows she must and gently shakes his shoulder. "Mulder," she softly says, "time to wake up."

Without opening his eyes, he groans in protest.

Scully leans in closer, so that her lips are nearly touching the evening stubble on his cheeks. "Open your eyes," she says.

His hazel eyes open. "How are you feeling?" she asks.

"Head hurts," he moans.

She says briskly, "That happens when you whack your head on a chairlift pole." Moving her index finger in front of his eyes, she notes that they appear to appropriately track her movements. Snapping on the lamp, the light makes his pupils contract. He's going to be fine.

This morning they were on the first run of the day, appropriately named Tippy's Tumble. She stood at the top of the mountain, gaping at the majestic view spread before her. It was only their second day of skiing at Big Sky and already she was hopelessly in love with the rugged mountains of the Northern Rockies.

Mulder skied to her side and stopped with a flamboyant swoosh of snow.

"I'll race you to the bottom," he said, adjusting his sunglasses.

"Yeah, in my dreams," she said. Mulder was a far better skier than she, having had the childhood privilege of trips to Vail and Snowmass.

She didn't learn to ski until college, when she spent several vacations with her roommate Sally in her hometown of Stowe, Vermont.

Taking off like quicksilver and skiing the fall line, Mulder quickly disappeared down the run. Scully laughed at his typical derring-do and started making her way along the fairly steep and icy trail, forming the wide traverses of the cautious skier.

This was a good idea, she thought, as the snow-covered trees rushed past and the cold wind blew in her face. Christmas in Montana, far, far away  
from the chaos of the Bureau. She could have spent the holidays in San Diego with her family, but the memories of the year before were still too raw and tender to return there just yet. Instead, she and Mulder cashed in some of their many frequent flyer miles and headed for twelve days of skiing and lolling in the Jacuzzi on the deck of their rented condominium.

Near the bottom of the mountain, she turned a bend in the run and spotted a navy jacket lying in a heap near the pole of the chairlift.

Her heart lurched painfully. It was Mulder and he was lying perfectly still.

With as much speed as her shaking body could muster she sped to the bottom of the slope, images of Sonny Bono and that Kennedy brother tormenting her all the way down. No no no, she desperately thought until she reached him.

Another skier, a young man in a green jacket, had stopped by Mulder. "He's out cold," he drawled in a southern voice.

Scully snapped into physician mode. "I'm a doctor," she breathlessly said. "Go get the Ski Patrol!"

The man nodded and skied away. She was glad to see he was an excellent skier. Stepping out of her bindings, she planted her skis in the snow  
and bent to Mulder. "Mulder!" she shouted, attempting to rouse him. Stripping off her gloves, she found a pulse.

His eyes opened and she breathed a sigh of relief. He struggled to sit up and she stilled him with her hand. "Don't move," she ordered.

"Scully?" he asked, his face twisting in confusion. "Where are we?"

A concussion, she rapidly told herself, short-term memory loss. "We're in Montana," she said, removing her ski jacket and covering him with it, in  
case he was going into shock. His pupils were dilated and his breathing rapid.

"Montana?" He sounded as if he might begin to cry. "What are we doing here, a case?"

She smiled to reassure him and took his gloved hand. "We're on vacation; it's Christmas Eve today. You need to calm down, Mulder. Take slow, easy  
breaths." She mimicked breathing for him.

He shook his head against the snow and Scully was glad she'd insisted he bring his hat along that morning. "I...I don't remember."

Squeezing his hand, she tried to smile again. "It's okay," she murmured. "You will."

Struggling to sit up again, his face turned a greenish shade. "Oh God," he groaned, "I think I'm going to throw up."

"You need to stay still. Calm down."

"But why?" he asked. "Why are we here?"

It's just a concussion, she told herself, but fear still ratcheted at her. God, couldn't they even have a vacation together without some sort of disaster? Suddenly Christmas in San Diego didn't seem like such an awful idea.

Just then, two red-jacketed Ski Patrol members whooshed up. "I'm a doctor," she explained to them. "I don't think he has a spinal injury, just a concussion. He seems able to sit up."

With Scully's help, the two women loaded Mulder onto their rescue sled and headed down the mountain. An hour later, Mulder and Scully were down  
the mountain at the Bozeman Hospital, where the ER doctor dryly commented that Mulder was their third accident from Big Sky that morning. By this  
time Mulder was coherent and able to remember the trip to the ski resort. After an exam and a CAT scan, Mulder was released to Scully's care, a  
pale, shaken and apologetic version of himself.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled as they headed back to Big Sky in their rented Explorer.

She patted his hand. "It was icy and you were skiing too fast, thinking you were sixteen again. It's okay."

He smiled and rubbed his eyes. "I wanted this to be perfect. It's Christmas. Our first Christmas together."

"You're alive, Mulder. That's all that counts."

Only Mulder could injure himself while on vacation. He had to do everything to the hilt, she thought as she navigated the tricky curves

of the road leading to Mountain Village. She couldn't be angry with him for his recklessness, that was how Mulder lived, at top speed.

Mulder sits up and grimaces. "What time is it?" he asks, stretching his arms.

"About five," she says, adjusting the pillows against his back.

He smiles crookedly. "Time flies when you ski too fast." A whack to the head doesn't seem to have impaired his sense of humor.

"Are you hungry? I made some dinner."

"Yeah, I think so. What did you make?"

"I put off the lasagna until tomorrow, when you'll be able to appreciate it more. I roasted a chicken and made some mashed potatoes. Good old-fashioned comfort food." She sits on the floor next to the couch and takes his warm hand in hers.

Mulder pulls her hand to his mouth and kisses it. "Merry Christmas."

"Happy Late Chanukah," she replies. They celebrated his holiday back home with a latke burning fiasco and eight presents. Hers from him were mostly from Victoria's Secret.

After dinner Mulder perks up a bit and she lights a fire in the stone fireplace and turns the stereo to Christmas carols. A woman with a meltingly sweet soprano voice sings "What Child Is This?" and a stab of pain for Emily shoots through her to the core. This time of year will always remain bittersweet for the memories of her lost daughter.

In the corner of the main room of the condo is a blue balsam, covered with multicolored balls and lights, kindly provided by the management.

Scully lies down beneath the boughs of the tree and stares up at the glowing lights, just like she used to as a child. Mulder joins her on the floor, so that his head is touching hers.

Scully shuts her eyes and smiles, inhaling the crisp essence of the tree. "This is so...Christmas," she says.

"Scully, when did you lose your virginity?" Mulder asks.

She nearly sits up in surprise. Is his concussion worse than she suspected? She laughs low in her throat. "That's a little out of left field. Are you sure you're okay?"

He chuckles. "I assure you, my brain is no more damaged than usual. I just thought this would be a good time for us to, uh, get to know each other."

Oh, Mulder. "After all this time, I'm surprised I haven't told you yet. Okay, I'm game. Let's see, I was nineteen and a freshman at Berkeley. Josh Rosenblum, we'd been going out for almost a semester and I figured it was about time, best to just get it out of the way."

"How was it?" She can almost hear the leer in his voice.

"Pretty disappointing, not too much fun at all. How about you? If you dish it out, you have to take it."

"Fair enough. My first was Kelly Reilly. It lasted all of thirty seconds and I was deeply embarrassed."

She laughs, not unkindly, picturing a younger, gawkier Mulder, eagerly fumbling his way through the experience.

"Hey," he says, his voice surprised. "I just realized something."

"What's that?"

"Kelly had red hair. I never made the connection before."

"So you're saying that your attraction to me stems from your first sexual experience? Like Nabokov's Humbert Humbert, eternally searching for the  
incarnation of his childhood love?"

He snorts. "Except for the part about being a European pedophile, you're exactly right. No, I've never had a particular thing for redheads, just  
one redhead in particular."

She smiles. "Nice play on words. Okay, if you're going to ask me a question like that, then I get one."

"Shoot."

"How many times have you been in love?"

"Oh, good question. I didn't love Phoebe, believe it or not. I guess I loved Diana in my way, but I think I loved the idea of her more than the actual woman."

Scully grits her teeth at the mention of Diana. One of her greatest failings as a person is jealousy. She's trying to work on it, really, she is, but she finds it difficult. She remembers all too well Diana's striking face and the way she called him Fox in low, purring tones. "The idea of Diana?"

He sounds uncomfortable, but gamely continues. "It was nice having someone who understood me, who could believe what I believed and didn't  
think I was completely out of my mind." He pauses. "Do you mind my talking about her?"

Scully shakes her head. "I wouldn't have asked you the question if I did," she lies.

"I loved her, but after she left, she didn't leave much of a hole in my psyche. Diana was gone and I moved on. And you, how many times have you been in love?"

She thinks of Jack and her worship of him so many years ago. Could that be called love? No, she decides, she knows what love is now. There is no  
hesitation in her voice. "Just you, Mulder. You're the only one."

His hand reaches up and smooths her hair. "I'm a lucky man."

"And don't forget it for a minute," she smiles.

"Okay, I have another question."

"I'm starting to feel like I'm being interrogated here, Mulder."

"We can stop, then."

"No, I'm kidding," she says. "Ask away."

He is silent for a minute and she wonders what he's formulating in that brain of his. "Why Skinner?"

Scully opens her eyes and looks up at the tree's lights. If she squints her eyes they form a beautiful blur of color. "I can't fully articulate it," she says. "I never told you this before, but I made the first move in Little Rock."

His voice sounds surprised. "You did?"

"Yes," she says simply. "I needed to be close to someone that night and he was there." Somehow it was easier to tell this not looking at Mulder's  
face.

"And I wasn't..."

"Mulder," she sighs. "I don't think the two of us would have worked then. I wasn't ready for what you and I have now."

"What made you ready?"

"Distancing myself from you. You were too close to everything that was painful in my life." A few errant tears begin to trickle down her face and she feels ashamed. She was raised to believe that crying was the mark of a coward.

She hears Mulder sit up with a small groan and he lays down by her side. His voice sounds choked. "I apologize for all the pain you've endured in your life with me."

Turning to him, she presses her cheek against the roughness of his whiskers. "You don't need to apologize," she says. "I made the choice to live this life. I have to take responsibility for my pain. A long time ago I told you I wouldn't change a day, and I still stand by those words."

He kisses her on the brow, a chaste, tender kiss that reminds her of their kiss in the hallway of the hospital in Allentown. Breathing in his smell, her heart expands with the rush of emotion she feels.

Mulder's eyes are drooping more that usual and she realizes he's getting sleepy again. She runs her fingertip along the extravagant curve of his  
lower lip. "We kind of grew on each other, didn't we Scully?" he slurs. "Like moss or ivy or maybe lichen..."

"I think it's time to get you to bed," she murmurs.

"You promise?" he smirks.

She helps him up and he totters off to the bedroom like a man with one drink too many in his gut. After changing into a t-shirt and a pair of  
leggings, she climbs in next to him and moves against his warm back. Already half-asleep, Mulder mutters, "You know what my greatest fear is?"

Nuzzling her nose into his neck, she says, "What's that?"

"Living without you..." His voice trails off and he breathes deeply in slumber.

I feel the same way, she thinks and listens to his breathing in the darkness.

After a few minutes she climbs back out of bed and pulls on her flannel bathrobe. In the kitchen she pours a glass of Pinot Noir and takes it into the living room, lit only by the glow of the Christmas tree. From the closet she brings out the bag of presents they hauled from Washington and carefully arranges them under the branches.

For a long time she stands at the window, sipping wine and staring at Lone Mountain, gleaming white in the dark sky. Give us time, she pleads with  
her God, a prayer as familiar to her now as the Hail Mary and the Our Father.  
_  
Lord, give us time. _

  
_ **Spring** _

Scully's low moaning jolts him out of his sleep.

He leans over and flicks on the bedside lamp. On her side, she is curled up with her hands covering her eyes, now whimpering like a wounded animal. Heart pounding, he strokes her shoulder. "Scully?" he says softly. "Hey Scully, wake up."

Thrashing her head wildly on the pillow, she seems utterly disoriented. "A bad dream," he says into her ear. "That's all it was, a bad dream."

She sits up, panting from the adrenaline rush of her nightmare, tears streaming down her face. "Wh-wh-where?" she stutters.

He leans closer and rubs her back, damp under her t-shirt. "You're here, in your bed," he patiently explains. This is what she says to him when he  
wakes from nightmares. She's never had one in his presence before.

Scully lets out her breath in a huge whoosh. "Oh God," she sighs, shaking her mussed head and blinking rapidly.

Continuing to rub slow circles on her lower back, he asks, "Are you okay?"

She nods.

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

A definite shake of her head tells him no.

"Come on, Scully, it'll help if you let it out."

Another shake of her head. "I'm fine."

Ah, yes. Her all-inclusive response to every kind of distress. She's fine. Scully is always fine, not a hair out of place.

She stands up, pulling her scrunched-up shirt down. "I need some water," she says and walks out of the bedroom.

Mulder flops down on the pillow and glances at the glow of the clock radio. It's 3:52 am, that magical time of the night when the nightmares visit.

Unlike him, Scully is usually the soundest of sleepers. The moment her head hits the pillow she's down for the count, rarely stirring until the alarm starts buzzing. He's the one who often wanders the night like a wraith. Many nights he gives up the idea of sleeping in a bed and camps out on the couch until the nonsense of late night talk shows lulls him back to sleep. Scully has learned to not take this as an insult on the nights they spend together. It's just how his body chemistry works.

It saddens him to think that perhaps sleep isn't a safe place for her, either. That the nightmares are part of her life, too. Certainly she has enough material for the nightmares of several women.

Guilt stabs through his abdomen. It's life with me that wakes her up moaning, he thinks.

Scully deserves better, of course. A man who is her refuge, her safety against the encroaching danger. Why she didn't stay with Skinner is a  
question he'll never be able to fully answer.

Over and over again she has patiently told him she regrets nothing, but it doesn't mean he doesn't carry his own load of regret upon his back.

Thanks to him she's had her health and happiness threatened, her safety stripped away, he fertility and memories taken.

He fails to understand why she stays.

If he were a less selfish man he would let her go, but he can't. He needs her that much.

His contradictory self tells him to quit being such an idiot, that she chose him. If she wanted to leave, she'd leave. Scully has always owned an honest heart.

Calmed, he smiles in the glow of the lamp. She loves him. God knows why, but she does.

Another glance at the clock tells him that fifteen minutes have passed since Scully left for her glass of water. He gets out of bed and pulls on the sweatpants and t-shirt he earlier threw on the chair and heads out into the living room. One of the lamps is turned on, but she's not there, or in the kitchen or bathroom either. With a mounting sense of alarm, Mulder grabs his keys off the end table and heads out the front door. He finds her sitting on the steps of her building, bundled in her red sweatshirt against the chill of the March air.

Knees drawn up, she is resting her chin on her cupped palm. He sits next to her and touches her shoulder. "Hi," he says.

She turns her face to him, the tear streaks visible on her face in the porch light. "Hi," she echoes.

"I wanted to make sure you were okay."

Scully nods. "I'm just thinking."

"Care to tell me about it?"

She shuts her eyes. "No, I need to be alone right now."

His hand reaches out to stroke her cool cheek. "I think you'd feel better if you talked to me," he says, frustrated at her refusal to open up.

Abruptly pulling away from his hand, she sighs sharply. "Mulder, please, respect my need to be alone and go back to bed."

He, too, sighs. "Scully, come on."

This time the anger is palpable in her face. "Mulder," she says in an unmistakable tone of warning.

"Fine," he says, stung, and retreats back into her building.

In the living room he settles on the couch and reflexively turns on the television to Jerry Springer, where two fat women are screaming at each other over some skinny guy with a bad mustache. He leans into the cushions and covers his legs with the wool throw.

He feels faintly ashamed for pushing her to give more than she could, but after so many years together he wishes she would not only trust him with  
her body and mind, but with her fear. Scully is intimately acquainted with his demons, but he still knows little of what runs beneath her placid exterior.

Let me in.

The door opens and Scully walks in, passing him on the way to the bedroom without looking in his direction. Mulder waits a minute and then clicks off the TV and dims the lamp.

The bedroom is dark and he can just barely see the lump her small body makes under the covers. He stands for a moment in the doorway, wondering  
if perhaps it might be a better idea to just go home. No, he thinks, it's time to act like a man and be there for the bad times as well as the good. He shucks off his sweatpants and climbs in bed.

Scully shifts, rolling onto her stomach. He freezes, not knowing what to do. Should he try to comfort her again or respect her need for privacy?  
Sometimes he wishes she had come to him with an owner's manual so he'd always be sure of the right thing to say and do. For a man of his age, he still has a difficult time deciphering the enigma that is woman, that is Scully.

"You left me," she mumbles into her pillow.

He wonders if he's hearing her right. "What did I do?"

She raises her head from the pillow. "My dream. You left me."

"Why did I do that?"

For a long time she is quiet and her silence seems to fill the room, to become its own entity, living and breathing with the two of them. Again she moves, rolling onto her back and covering her face with her arm. Her voice is soft and curiously devoid of affect when she finally chooses to speak. "I'm infertile, Mulder."

He sighs, sadness settling on his chest like goosedown. "I know." Of course he does, he knew long before she herself knew, another in his long list of crimes against Scully.

"Some day you'll leave me for it," she says in that flat voice.

Moving onto his side, he faces her. "Do you really think that?"

"I know it."

"You can't possibly know that."

She sits up and runs her hands through her hair. "Mulder, procreation is one of the most primal human instincts. Some day you'll want a child and I can't give it to you."

Sitting up, he pulls her towards him, so that she is sitting in the vee of his legs. "Have I ever mentioned wanting a child?" he says into the nape of her soft neck.

Her head dips down. "You will."

"You presume to know an awful lot about my motives."

"I'm being realistic."

He kisses her on the side of the neck and she flinches at the touch. "No," he says, struggling to keep his voice even. "You're scared and you have the right to be."

Scully's voice is ragged and exhausted. "Mulder, I'm angry right now. Not at you, but at the fact that my ability to have children was taken from me. I never really gave it much thought, you know? I assumed that if I decided to have a child, I would." Her tone rises and he can hear the tears choking her throat. "I don't even know if I want to have children, but now I don't even have that choice. It was taken from me, against my will."

Wrapping his arms around her waist, he pulls her closer and this time she doesn't move away. "I know," he says, trying to soothe. "I'm angry, too.  
You didn't deserve this. No woman deserves this. You can be as angry as you want."

She leans into his shoulder, smelling of her usual delectable late night combination of sex and almonds. It takes all his willpower not to become hard at her nearness in this most inappropriate time. "Loving you makes it harder, more difficult to bear, Mulder."

Guilt swirls about his head like a malevolent spirit. He struggles to find the right words, but only the honest ones come to mind. "I wish I had the magic words to make it all better for you," he says. "I don't. Nothing I can say or do will return what was taken from you. There's no easy answer. All I can do is reassure you that whether or not you can have a child, I will continue to love you."

"I wish I could believe that."

Hot tears spark his eyes. Has she so little faith in him after all they've lived through together? His arms wrap tighter and then release her. "Scully, turn around," he rasps.

Wordlessly, she obeys. He flicks on the light and she squints at the brightness. Taking her shaking hand, he presses it to his chest, terrified by the words he's about to say to her. "Scully, there's a very old vow and I want to make it you now, despite the lack of clergy or witnesses." He clears his throat, heart beating madly. Slow and steady is what wins the race, he thinks and begins. "For richer or poorer, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, until death parts us."

Scully shuts her eyes and sits with infinite stillness. He fears the worst, that she hasn't taken his vow seriously. Her eyes open, glassy with tears. "You mean it," she states.

He nods.

Pressing her forehead against his, her voice is wistful, but he thinks he just may discern a note of hope there as well. "Until death parts us."

He takes her into his arms and holds her. She is always so strong, he thinks, the force that keeps me together, but now I know that I can do the same for her. "Until death parts us," he repeats. "My words can't mitigate your pain, Scully, but no matter where life takes us, I'm here."

She slides onto her side, smiling faintly. "It's never going to be easy for us, is it?"

Snapping off the light, he lies down, facing her. "We're on a strange journey together, but I think it's worth it."

"It is," she agrees with a grave nod of her head.

Her warm body presses against him. "I'm glad we're not alone."

Mulder's last thoughts before slipping into sleep are full of gratitude. Tonight she shared her secret self, and for that he can only be grateful.

_ **  
Summer** _

The screen door bangs shut as Mulder heads out to the back porch. Scully stands at the wood table and surveys the damage they made with dinner. It looks like they had a dinner party for eight, rather than two people feasting on grilled shrimp and salad. How do they manage to make such a mess, she wonders with a grin on her face. Her natural instinct is to start the cleaning, to do the dishes and get the tablecloth into the washer, but she shakes her head. Not tonight. It's the most beautiful of summer evenings, warm but not muggy and the bugs don't seem to be out in full force either. Instead she blows out the candles and cuts two slices of the lemon cake they bought on the way down to the Cape from Boston.

The hundred year-old wooden house, set on a pond on the Cape, belongs to her friend Ellen's parents, who kindly lent it to her for five days. The  
back porch overlooks the shimmering water of Marble Pond. Mulder is sitting on the old wicker couch, staring at the water. He has the citronella torches lit on either end of the porch and the air reeks of the sharp tang of the smoke.

She sits beside him, the wicker on the couch crackling. "You look pensive," she says.

He looks up, startled from his thoughts and smiles to see her. "We're not that far from the Vineyard."

Oh. Somehow she forgot about that. "I'm sorry," she says. "We should have gone somewhere else."

Funny how they always seem to get it a little bit wrong, just the tiniest millimeter off-center.

He takes her hand. "This is fine," he says. "It just brings back memories. Something about the way the air smells here. I might be imagining things, but I swear I can smell the ocean."

She sniffs the air and catches the salty tang. "I smell it, too. We're only a few miles away."

Mulder pounces on the lemon cake and disposes of it in a few huge bites. She's never failed to be surprised by how much food he can stuff in his  
mouth. He still eats like the rangy teenage boy he must have been and she imagines him standing in front of a full refrigerator, complaining to his  
mother that there is nothing to eat.

He swallows and grins. "Not all the memories are bad," he says. "Not everything in my life was horrible back then, even after she was gone."

She chews her more judicious bite of cake. "What was it like then?" she asks.

He puts the plate on the floor and cocks his head, as if trying to conjure the memories. "Quiet," he finally says. "It was quiet for a long time, all of us afraid to say anything to each other, for fear of saying the wrong thing, of opening the wounds."

Like I've done tonight, she thinks with guilt. "I'm sorry," she says.

"For bringing it up? It's fine, really it is. It was a long time ago."

But it's still close to your heart, she thinks.

He speaks up again. "I'm going to have to face it some time," he says.

"Face what?"

"My father's house in West Tisbury. He left it to me, and it's just sitting there. I have to go there one of these days, get it ready to sell."

"Is that what you want to do?"

He nods. "The house has very few good memories for me. To me it will always be the house where my father was killed." Oh God, the night he called her, his voice shattered and papery with fear and pain. The way he stumbled into her apartment, fresh from the airport, covered in his father's blood and burning with fever.

Scully stares into the dark, at the bugs swarming around the light attached to the side of the house. "We could go there tomorrow," she cautiously offers. "If you're ready," she amends.

Looking down at his hands, he smiles in chagrin. "I don't know if I am," he simply says.

She leans against him. "If you're not ready, you don't have to. The house isn't going anywhere."

He kisses her cheek with infinite tenderness. "You understand," he says.

Nodding, she smiles at him. "I'm learning to understand you."

He takes her by the hand and stands up. "What are you doing?" she asks.

"Let's go down to the pond," he says. They carefully make their way down the stone path to the dock and walk to the end, admiring the glow the other four pond houses make on the still surface of the water.

Scully again breathes in the faint sea breeze, mingled with the rich smell of the pond water. He puts his arm around her. "It's been a year," he says.

In the dark, her face flushes. She hasn't said anything to him, but he remembers what July sixteen signifies. Their coming together, after every trial and tribulation known to man and woman. The night she took him by the hand and led him into her dark bedroom. The night they each stood naked before the other and smiled at the sight. The night they chose to forgive each other for the pain and start their lives over. Oh, the night rain beat against the windows and she cried out at his touch between the flashes of lightning.

She rests her head on his shoulder and her mouth automatically turns up into a smile. "A year," she echoes.

Three hundred and sixty-five days since they came together. It seems longer than that. It feels like forever.

"Same time, this dock next year?" Mulder asks, his hand sliding under her t-shirt and up her bare back.

"I'll be the one smelling like Avon Skin-so-Soft," she chuckles.

He pulls her closer and kisses her with his lemon flavored mouth, his lips soft and giving. She pulls away. "What?" he asks, face twisting.

She takes his hand. "Let's go to bed," she softly says.

Hand-in-hand they walk back up the stone path to the old house.


	12. Pretending to Sleep

"Welcome to United Airlines Flight 1066 with service from Washington D.C. to Sacramento.  We are now preparing for departure so please make sure your safety belt is securely fastened and that your seat is in the upright position. Thank you and enjoy your flight in the Friendly Skies." 

The three of them are in a single row, side by side—Skinner at the window, Scully in the middle, Mulder in the aisle seat.  All three of them have their eyes closed and they are pretending to sleep. 

 

"We have now reached our cruising altitude and it is safe for you to remove your seat belt and move freely about the cabin." 

He keeps his eyes shut. 

If he could sleep, he would.  He hasn't slept more than two or three hours a night since Amber Lynn LaPierre disappeared.  Not since Caroline nudged him awake and said, "Walter, wake up.  Someone's on the phone for you."  Since then it's been bad coffee, cold take-out and wrangling agents. 

He's always been at his best in a crisis.  Skinner thrives at directing, coordinating, organizing.  He's the first one who is called when the shit goes down.  But this time, it's different.  It's personal.  He can feel it in the way Scully is tensed next to him.  Her eyes are shut, too; he knows this without having to open his own.  He can hear the hitching in her breathing.  He can smell the tension coming off her body. 

He can't see Mulder, all the way over in the aisle seat, but he imagines he can feel his waves of pain and sorrow, the lack of comprehension. 

He knows those sensations all too well. 

There was a morning when the phone rang just as he and Sharon were about to make love.  They were still living in Minneapolis and outside a blizzard was raging.  The windows were rattling with the gale force of the wind and through the blinds all he could see was a solid wall of white.  Everything in the city was shut down and they laughed with the childish joy of a snow day ahead of them. 

And then the phone began ringing. 

"Don't pick it up," Sharon mumbled into his shoulder.  Her fingers were dancing down his stomach, but force of habit made him answer. 

"Walter?"  It was his mother's voice, tremulous and higher-pitched than normal. 

"Mom, what's going on?" 

There was a long pause and Skinner wondered, with a sinking feeling in his gut, what bad news she had for him.  She was at the age now where something could be wrong with her health, or his father's. 

"It's Corrine." 

"Corrine?"  His younger sister, she was twenty-four and a graduate student at Northwestern, studying French literature.  He had an older sister, too, Cathy. 

"Walter...Corrine is dead.  She killed herself last night." 

He dropped the phone and heard it bounce off the hardwood floor. 

So many years later, he hardly remembers Corrine's wake and funeral.  He can remember spending hours on the phone after getting the news from his mother, trying to get a flight out of snow-bound Minneapolis.  He can remember the coolness of Sharon's hand clasping his at the funeral, the minister's dry and flat voice.  He remembers his mother sobbing into a lacy white handkerchief at the wake while his father sat in the corner with his face in his hands, stunned into silence. 

The thing he remembers most was the obscenity of the open coffin at the wake.  It was a travesty to have Corrine, beautiful and looking as if she had merely lain down for a short nap, on display for all to see.  He'd touched her dark, curly hair, unable to accept the fact that she'd never open her eyes.  Those black eyelashes would never lift from her soft olive skin. 

And through it all, he'd thought to himself—why?  Why why why do this, Corrie, why leave us without a note, without a reason, why slash your wrists, what drove you to it?  I never had the chance to say goodbye to you. 

He still asks these questions, years later.  He'd known she was depressed, not doing as well as she'd wanted to in grad school, had broken up with her boyfriend, but the questions still haunt him. 

Sometimes when they're together during the holidays, Cathy will look at him and he at her and he knows she's tortured by the same unanswered questions. 

With suicide, there is no closure. 

Skinner opens his eyes and glances over at Mulder and Scully.  He wishes he could take Mulder out for a drink, not as his supervisor, but as a concerned friend.  Just the two of them in a bar somewhere, talking about the gaping wound the suicide of a loved one leaves.  But that day will never come.  There's too much baggage between the two of them—everything to do with the Bureau and the X-Files, and Scully, of course. 

Out of the corner of the eye, he notices the lump under the blanket that Scully has covering her.  She's holding hands with Mulder. 

If he'd seen this a year or so ago, he'd probably be infuriated, convinced she was flaunting her relationship with Mulder in front of him.  It would be almost as devastating as the time on the plane, right after he and Scully had become lovers in Little Rock, when he'd seen her sleeping with her head on Mulder's shoulder.  But things are different now.  He knows that's not Scully's way.  Even if Mulder and Scully weren't romantically involved, she'd probably still hold his hand. She's holding Mulder's hand for comfort.  Skinner will not deny the other man that at a time like this.  He remembers how Sharon's hand sustained him in his own grief. 

California is going to be rough.  The combination of a grieving Mulder and a missing child is like nitroglycerin and a match.  It's going to take all of Skinner's skills to keep everyone in line and on task. 

Skinner isn't a religious man, but he closes his eyes again and says a brief prayer for closure. 

 

"We will now be starting our special feature movie, _The Matrix_, starring Keanu Reeves.  If you would like to purchase a headset, the flight attendants will now be coming down the aisles.  The price of the headset is three dollars and you are welcome to keep it after the flight is over." 

She keeps her eyes shut. 

If she could sleep, she would.  She can't remember if she slept at all last night.  There was a dreamy period just before dawn when they were wrapped in each other's arms and time seemed to still to a long, white ribbon, but she's not sure if she was actually sleeping at that point or not. 

Last night seems like a long, strange hallucination to her.  She's seen Mulder break down before, but never quite like this. 

"A real man never cries."  Her father always said that to her brothers.  He'd said it in the car after Charlie fell out of the apple tree and broke his arm.  Charlie huddled in his mother's lap, weeping pitifully in her arms from the pain, and her father admonished him for crying.  He was only six years old at the time.  At the time, Dana had only been a child herself, but she'd known her father was wrong, that a man could cry and still be masculine. 

But if you hear something enough, you begin to believe it.  "A real man never cries."  No wonder all of her men before Mulder were the strong, silent type.  

She's seen Mulder cry before.  Last night wasn't the first time, but it was the worst as he let out his grief and confusion in horrible gouts of painful sobs.  At first it made her uncomfortable to see him so wracked with sorrow.  He seemed almost diminished by his weeping.  But her sympathy took over as she held his shaking body in her arms.  Mulder was a real man, she knew that from the bottom of her heart.  He was a real man because he had the strength to feel. 

Scully's eyes briefly open and flicker over to Mulder's profile.  Even though the light in the plane isn't bright, he's wearing his sunglasses.  Although she can't see his eyes, she knows he's not sleeping.  His breathing isn't even enough.  In the last year and a half she's spent hundreds of nights sleeping by his side and she knows his rhythms well. 

Skinner isn't sleeping either, even though his eyes aren't open.  She knows his breathing patterns, too. 

How sadly ironic, she thinks, reflecting on their seating arrangements on the plane.  Mulder on one side of her, Skinner on the other.  She's in the middle. 

It's been a long time since she's been physically this close to Skinner.  Closing her eyes again, she realizes that if she turns her head just slightly to the left, she can smell the woodsy soap and starched shirt scent of Skinner.  And if she moves to the right a little, she catches a whiff of Mulder, of the fancy Aveda shampoo he now stocks in his shower at her request and underneath it, the indefinable smell of Mulder that she would be able to recognize even blindfolded.  

However, this isn't the time to ruminate on the strange love triangle that once was.  This is about Mulder and Teena and finding Amber Lynn.  Last night she wasn't Mulder's lover.  She didn't spend the night to drown in the pleasure of his body, to laugh at his ridiculous jokes or burn frozen pizza while kissing on the couch.  She was there as his partner, his doctor, his best friend.  When she held him in her arms in bed, his hot and damp face pressed against her chest, it was utterly chaste.  It was comfort, it was support, it was nothing she wouldn't have done at nearly any point in their partnership, even before they became a couple. 

Scully feels Mulder's hand creep under the blanket.  God, his hand is so cold and dry.  He reaches for her hand and she almost opens her eyes in surprise. They can't do this, not here, not with Skinner, of all people, sitting right next to them. But she can't deny Mulder this. 

Their hands link and she takes a deep breath, knowing that right now, she's Mulder's lifeline.  I'll always be here to hold your hand, she thinks, wishing she could say it aloud. 

You will get through this, you're so strong, Mulder.  And I won't think less of you if you need to cry. 

She squeezes Mulder's hand under the blankets and offers up a prayer to her God, a prayer for closure. 

 

"We are now approaching our descent into Sacramento and we will be landing in approximately fifteen minutes. Please be sure your seat is in the upright position and that your safety belt is fastened. The local temperature is a warm and sunny sixty-two degrees.  We hope you enjoy your stay in Sacramento and thank you for flying with us." 

He keeps his eyes closed. 

If he could sleep, he would. 

His brain still feels fuzzy and dull-edged from the sleeping pill Scully made him take somewhere in the middle of the night.  He has that puffy-eyed, swollen-sinus, hungover feeling from too much crying. 

But he can't sleep.  Mulder wonders if he will ever sleep again. 

Strangely enough, the emotion he's feeling the most right now is disappointment, as selfish as that sounds.  He'll never know his mother's story, the truth as she knows it. 

He tried to be the best son he could.  He sent her presents on her birthday and Mother's Day and called at least once or twice a month.  He even managed to be there on the occasional holiday, even if it meant long silences between them, his mother drinking too much and a whole lot of frustration on his part.  She was his mother and he was all she had left in the world and she was all he had. 

Now, he's alone. 

Well, not really.  Scully is still holding his hand, her fingers warm and smooth, imparting their strength and calm to him. 

Mulder has had a rather detailed fantasy about his mother, dreaming that one day she'd call him, out of the blue, and ask him up to Greenwich. "Son, I need to talk to you," he always imagined her saying. 

They'd sit in the kitchen, surrounded by sunlight and she'd pour him a cup of coffee and say, "Fox, I want to tell you what really happened to Samantha." 

Even if the truth was ugly, painful, horrible, he'd know.  He'd never again have to wake up from a haunting dream about his sister.  He'd either be able to mourn her or have a new angle from which to continue his search. 

But now that road is closed forever and he'll never learn what his mother knew. 

It makes him hate her for it, for being selfish enough to leave the world without easing his pain.  And it makes him hate himself for hating her in that way. 

After all, he wasn't close enough to his own mother to know she was sick, to know her fears and her pain. 

It's enough for him to want to bow his head and dissolve into another torrent of tears, but he won't.  He has to be strong, for the case, for Amber. 

He remembers Scully last night, after he took the pills and grew drowsy, how they lay in his bed, her chest pressed against his back.  It seemed odd to him for them to be in that position since given his larger size, he was usually the one who lay behind when they spooned.  But it made sense last night—he needed to be held, needed to be surrounded by her sweet skin, her soft voice whispering soothing nonsense syllables in his ear.  He needed to be reminded that the world wasn't all little girls being abducted and grieving mothers.  Last night he'd needed to know that there was something good left in the world, something worth getting his weary body out of bed and fighting the fight for. 

For a moment he opens his eyes and looks over at the other two from behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses.  Scully has her eyes shut, but he knows she's not sleeping from the set of her mouth.  There's something about the muscles in her mouth that utterly relax when she's sleeping, as if she's given up all pretense of self-control.  It's a small Scullyfact that he finds endlessly charming.  It's harder to tell if Skinner is sleeping or not.  Skinner is a person Mulder has a hard time imagining sleeping at all.  Yet Scully has seen him sleep.  Sometimes Mulder forgets that they were lovers, once upon a time.  Even now, looking at them with their heads barely inches apart, Mulder still finds that fact hard to digest. 

In a sick kind of way, Mulder admires the fashion in which Scully dealt with Skinner this morning at the door.  She was utterly unashamed of the fact, even though neither of them have ever come right out and said anything to Skinner about being romantically involved.  No, Scully stood her ground, concerned only for his well-being.  What a woman. 

The plane begins descending toward the ground.  Mulder drops his jaw to clear out the pressure from his ears.  They're almost there.  Time to think only about Amber Lynn, about the beautiful girl so loved by her parents.  Push the grief aside, quit trying to find parallels, look only to what you have before you, he tells himself.  When he lectures to himself, sometimes he finds his inner voice comes out sounding a lot like Scully. 

I just want this to be over, I want this to all go away, he selfishly thinks.  

He can't afford to mourn right now. 

Mulder never prays to a deity he's unable to believe in, but this time he has to hope someone is listening to him.  He takes off his sunglasses and looks out the window at the rapidly approaching landscape of Sacramento.  He prays for closure.  
 

"Welcome to Sacramento.  Please do not unbuckle your safety belt until the plane has reached a complete stop and the seatbelt sign is turned off.  We hope you enjoyed your flight in the Friendly Skies."


	13. Resonance

The string quartet strikes up the familiar strains of Ode to Joy as he turns his head to watch his bride. Slowly, she makes the journey down the white carpet, carrying a simple arrangement of lilies. He admires the ease in which she travels, with a queenly posture that makes her seem much taller than she truly is. She looks straight ahead with serious eyes and a hint of a smile about her lips.

The bride walks alone down the aisle. Her father has been gone for several years and she wanted no other. "I'm not a blushing twenty year-old," she told him when they first sat down to make wedding plans. "One of my brothers could walk me, but I prefer to do it alone. I want to come to you alone, an independent woman."

She reaches him and his heart pounds underneath the silk of his tuxedo. Gracefully, she hands her bouquet to her sole attendant and takes his hand in hers. Eternity, he thinks, his heart filling with awe. This is eternity.

They turn to face one another. Her eyes have never seemed quite as blue as they do now, standing in the Virginia countryside under the warm late afternoon sun.

The judge begins. "Dearly beloved," she intones. "Today we are gathered here for the happiest of purposes, to join this man and this woman in the everlasting bond of matrimony."

She squeezes his hand and he squeezes back.

  
After the vows have been said, the kiss cheered, the rice flung and the receiving line gotten through, Skinner finds a moment to slip away from the crowd. The band is setting up under the tent and waiters pass trays of canapes and champagne, while caterers begin to light the chafing dishes at the buffet tables. With his glass of Piper-Heidsieck in hand, he wanders behind a hedge in the garden of the Burton Inn. It's late October but still quite warm down in horse country and Skinner longs to loosen his tie.

He hears a rustling of grass and leaves and looking up, he is startled to see Dana Scully walking towards him with a determined step. Skinner smiles to see the woman he hasn't seen in almost two years, since he left the Bureau to head the President's Task Force on Domestic Terrorism.

Time has been kind to Scully. She hardly appears to have aged a day since the night, four years ago, when they became lovers. Her hair is still as glossy and red as ever and her face remains unlined, remarkable for a woman who as endured as much as she.

Scully's face blooms into a smile as she approaches him and she stands on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, her skin still smelling, as ever, of almonds.

She takes his hand. "Congratulations."

"Thank you," he replies, smiling. "I never thought this day would come."

"You deserve the best," she says with a grave nod of her head.

He chuckles. "Today I feel like a lucky man."

"You are lucky. I haven't had a chance to talk with Caroline yet, but she seems like a lovely woman."

Skinner lifts her left hand to his, noticing that it is still bare of rings. "How about you?" he asks. "No ring yet, I see."

Tipping her head back, Scully emits a low, throaty laugh, the laugh he only used to hear from her in bed. "Mulder and me, married? That'll be the day."

He lets her hand go. "But, are you happy?"

The smile on her face speaks for her more than her words. "The happiest..."

"I'm glad." And he is, that's the wonderful part.

He reaches into the inside pocket of his dinner jacket and brings out a small package, wrapped in white paper. "I have something for you, Scully."

Her eyebrow raises, a gesture so familiar to his eyes. "Skinner, the custom is that on your wedding day, I give you a present. We got you a coffee maker, by the way. The kind with a timer."

For a moment he wonders if it is a mistake to give this to her, if she will misunderstand his motives. No, he thinks, you have to give it to her, it is the final step toward closure. "This is something I got for you a long time ago and never gave you. Today seems like the right day for it."

Scully takes the present and turns it about it in her fingers. "Can I open it now?"

He shakes his head. "No, it's for later. It's just something to remember me by."

She shuts her eyes and opens them again. "Skinner," she says, voice wavering, "I never got to tell you how sorry I was, how sorry I am."

Bending down, he kisses the top of her head. "Scully, it was a long time ago, you don't need to apologize. I'm happy and you're happy. If I were Buddhist, I'd call it karma. It all turned out the way it was meant to turn out."

Or perhaps we could call it fate, he thinks.

"Thank you," she simply says.

Scully slips her arm through his. "Come on, let's find Caroline and Mulder. Dinner is about to be served and you have a beautiful cake to cut."

Arm-in-arm, they companionably walk back to the wedding party.

  
In the ladies room of the inn, Caroline holds still as Leah fixes the white headband that holds her dark, curly hair off her face. It amazes her that at fourteen, Leah is nearly her height.

"Perfect, Mom," Leah pronounces and stands back to admire her work.

"You're better than my hairdresser, honey."

Leah pulls out a tube of lipstick and applies deep pink to her pursed lips at the long mirror. God, her baby, putting on lipstick with expertise. Despite the fact that it's her wedding day, Caroline suddenly feels old.

Turning around, Leah says, "Hey Mom, do you know what Grandma just said?"

Caroline bends down and removes one of her white satin pumps. She never had the time to break them in and her feet ache. "What's that?"

Her daughter smirks. "She told me now that you're married to Walter I have to call him Dad."

"Last time I checked, your Dad was alive and well and living in Wilmington, Delaware."

"Yeah, that's pretty much what I told her."

Caroline sinks into one of the chairs to take off the other shoe and reminds herself to have another little talk with her mother. The door opens and a small woman with dark red hair walks in, wearing a pale green sheath dress. Caroline pauses in mid-massage of her aching instep. She knows who the woman is.

The redhead smiles hesitantly and approaches her. "Hello," she says in a light tone, "we never got a chance to properly meet. I'm an old...friend...of Walter's. My name is Dana Scully."

The first mention of Dana Scully came on their third or fourth date as she and Walter went for a Sunday afternoon walk through Rock Creek Park. Caroline talked a bit about her divorce, the year before, from Tom and he spoke of his own divorce. He talked of Sharon, his ex-wife, in easy and measured tones and she was glad, glad he seemed to be past the pain of his failed marriage. His baggage was light, she thought.

They stopped to rest on a wooden park bench and passed a bottle of water back and forth. Then he mentioned, in a transparently light tone of voice, that he had ended another relationship a few months before. "She left me for someone else," he said, fiddling with the cap on the bottle of Evian.

Caroline noticed he wasn't looking at her. She patted his large hand. "I'm sorry to hear that."

He lifted his head. "Well," he sighed, "it was a mistake from the beginning. She was once of the agents under my charge, still is, as a matter of fact. It was incredibly stupid for me to get involved with her in the first place."

She tried to smile in reassurance. "These things happen all the time. After all, Tom was one of my professors in grad school. How are things now with her at work?"

Walter shrugged. "It's been strained but we're trying to be mature about it." He turned his head to look at her and she recognized the pain in his eyes. "You see, the man she left me for is her partner."

"Oh my..." Her mouth opened. "I never realized the FBI was so full of romantic intrigue."

"You have no idea, Caroline." He laughed and squeezed her hand.

Walter stood and tugged her to her feet. "Come on, let's walk back. We have a movie to catch."

She managed to put the conversation at the park out of her mind until a week later, when he invited her to his place for dinner.

After a dinner of risotto and wine, he led her on a tour of his place. Walter's apartment was spacious and modern, with large picture windows offering a spectacular view of the city. It was neat and clean but sparsely furnished in the manner she had come to expect from newly divorced men in their forties.

The one room that looked truly lived-in was his study. One wall was covered in shelves of obviously much-used and well-loved books. The other walls held diplomas and commendations and one of Walter shaking hands with President Clinton and another of him with Janet Reno. Interspersed with these were framed lithographs of early Washington D.C. The large wood desk was scattered with papers and files and held several silver-framed photographs.

She lifted a photo of a dark-haired boy with glasses and a missing front tooth, sitting with a slightly older girl who wore a large taffeta bow in her curly hair. "That's my sister Cathy," he said, smiling. "She lives in Chicago with her husband and three kids."

He pointed out pictures of his parents, his nephews and one silly picture of a shirtless Walter and another man, proudly holding up a large Blue Marlin. The last photograph was of Walter and a group of people in evening dress sitting at a round table, all of them holding flutes of champagne.

"Where was this taken?" she asked, bringing the frame in for closer inspection.

She could feel his back stiffen next to her. "One of my agents, Darlene Simons, was married last March. These are some of the agents who work under me and I, at the reception."

Caroline scanned the faces of the seven people sitting at the table. It was far too easy to pick out which woman was his former lover. Walter was sitting next to her, smiling, and even though he wasn't touching the woman, his face was turned to her. His lover was a small woman with bobbed auburn hair in loose waves, wearing a simple maroon dress that flattered her autumn coloring. Of course she'd have to be young and beautiful, she thought with uncharacteristic jealousy.

She tapped the woman's face with her fingernail. "That's her, isn't it?"

He grimaced and nodded. "Yes. Her name is Dana Scully. The man to her left is her partner, Fox Mulder."

Turning her eyes to the man in the photo, she found him handsome, despite a large nose and small chin. About ten years younger than Walter, she mused, a much more appropriate age match for Dana. She noticed that while Walter was looking at Dana in the photo, Dana and Fox had their faces turned to each other and seemed to be grinning over a private joke. The picture seemed to sum the whole situation up better than any words could. Caroline set the frame back down into its place on the desk.

She smiled up at Walter. "Why don't you show me the rest of the place?"

He kissed her cheek and led her out of the study.

Weeks passed and Caroline found herself happy. After the disaster that was the final years of her marriage and a few aborted relationships, she had found someone with whom she felt simpatico. They were both tremendously busy people, but tried to find the time to be together. Walter was a good listener and the teller of fascinating stories from his years with the Bureau. He loved opera almost as much as she, which was how they had met in the first place. She found him to be knowledgeable about the things she held most dear-art, literature, history and politics. God, he could even cook.

Walter was the kind of man who called when he said he would, showed up on time and sent flowers with embarrassing frequency. For a woman whose last birthday present from her husband was an ironing board, this was heady stuff indeed. After a time he met her daughter and she was delighted to see him treat Leah with a grave respect, rather than the cloying sincerity she'd spotted from the other men she'd dated in the past year. Privately, Leah made a few bald comments but seemed to like him more than anyone else Caroline had seen.

And, in time, she discovered Walter to be a sensitive and skilled lover, a man who truly delighted in exploring a woman's body. Caroline felt more content than she had in nearly a decade. Co-workers and friends kept asking why she seemed to be glowing. Her mother clucked about setting a date for the wedding. Caroline told her to calm down, but inwardly she smiled.

Still, as weeks turned into months and winter hit the city, she started feeling strangely dissatisfied. As wonderful and caring as Walter was, he rarely talked of personal things, what was  
close to his heart. Caroline tried prying with a few pointed questions, but was met with a wall of silence and a deft changing of the subject. I'm not needy, she thought as he slept next to her. I have a full life, but at this point don't I have a right to expect more? Men, she moodily thought, always so afraid to open up.

There were more than a few times when she caught him staring off into the distance and she somehow knew he was thinking of the other woman.

It will pass, she thought. Caroline tried not to dwell on it.

Then, one late night in his bedroom, as they were making love, she felt it. Oh, it was good as always, he was thrusting into her and she was crying out from the sheer pleasure of it, but suddenly it all felt different. His rhythm was one she had never felt from him before and the way he touched her was somehow softer, yet more possessive. Walter wasn't making love with her, his eyes were shut and he was with Dana. He touched her cheek and she knew it wasn't her cheek he felt underneath his fingers, it was the cheek of the other woman. She shut her eyes, the pleasure rapidly fleeing her body. Caroline just knew.

After he fell asleep, Caroline pulled on the bathrobe she now kept at his place and went into the kitchen. With shaking hands she fixed a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table. He didn't love her, he still loved the ghost of the woman who had left him six months before. Tears welled in her eyes and she wiped them away with the sleeve of her bathrobe, feeling like a fool.

She heard his footsteps, padding down the hallway towards her. Walter sleepily smiled at her, wearing only his pajama bottoms. He put on his glasses. "What are you doing up?"

Caroline looked up at him, trying to keep her voice even. "I can't be your substitute, Walter."

He sat down and blinked at her behind his lenses. "What are you talking about?"

She sighed. "You still love her. Don't deny it, I know you do." She sipped her tea, wishing she were back home in her own bed, not having this confrontation with her new lover. "I care a lot about you," she continued. "I think I could love you, but not with her ghost hovering around us."

Burying his face in his hand, he shook his head. "I'm sorry, Caroline. I'm trying."

"I know you are." She stroked the roughness of his cheek and managed to smile. "I know you are, but I can't be with you like this if you're still obsessing over someone else. She's not real, you know."

Surprised, he looked up. "What do you mean she's not real?"

"What I mean is that she's your past now and you have to admit that to yourself." Tears ran down her face and he wordlessly handed her a tissue. "Dana is with someone else and she's probably happy, as harsh as that sounds. You deserve some happiness, too, but you're not going to find it by hanging on to the memories of the past."

"I know, and for what it's worth, I'm sorry."

It ached, it burned to know that all of this time he had been pining for Dana while he was with her.

Caroline rose. "I need to go home now."

His eyes were dark with sorrow. "Don't go."

She shook her head. "No, I have to. You need time and you need to deal with this alone. I can't help you with this, I only confuse the issue."

Walter stood and took her in his arms, arms that had only represented strength and caring to her before this night. "Is it over, then?"

"That's up to you. I want to be with you, but I want to be yours alone."

She kissed his cheek, dressed and left him sitting at the kitchen table, his face again in his hands.

You did the right thing, she told herself as the tears threatened to blur her vision of the highway. But if it was the right thing to do, why did it have to hurt so fucking much?

The following weekend Caroline drove Leah and a gaggle of girlfriends to the mall to swoon over the latest Leonardo Di Caprio movie. After she let the girls out at the entrance, she decided to do a little shopping rather than return home to grade finals.

Walking through Nordstroms, she found they were having a shoe sale and her face lit up with glee. Perfect, just perfect. When a woman's heart is bruised, shopping for shoes is the only short-term remedy, she thought.

Better Shoes was bustling with bargain hunters, but Caroline immediately found a pair of strappy Joan and David sandals that called out to her with a siren's song. She managed to find the last remaining seat and after an interminable wait a salesman went to fetch her a pair of size eights.

Caroline fingered the black leather of the sandals, trying not to think of where she might have worn the shoes with Walter. Give it up, she told herself, you're not some besotted teenager. You're forty-two, a full professor at Georgetown and there are indeed other fish in the sea.

"Those are nice," came a feminine voice to her left.

"Aren't they? And only sixty dollars..." She turned her head and her smile froze in place. Oh my God, what a sick joke, what a horrible coincidence on the one day she wanted to cheer herself up.

Caroline's neighbor to the left was, without a doubt, Dana Scully. She was casually dressed in jeans and a black v-necked pullover but there was no mistaking the bright auburn hair, the small Roman nose and the line of her jaw.

The other woman smiled. "I wonder if I should snap up a pair of those, too." She pointed to the pair of conservative navy pumps on her lap. "I never buy shoes for fun, just for work."

That was the galling thing, Caroline thought. Dana Scully wasn't the evil harpy of her imagination, who heedlessly crushed Walter's heart with a twist of her stiletto heel. She was simply another pretty young woman taking advantage of a shoe sale.

The salesman returned, box in hand, and slipped the shoes on Caroline's feet. She stood and took an experimental walk on the carpet, trying not to stare at Dana. Damn, she's young, she thought, what was Walter doing with a woman so young?

"Wonderful," said the redhead. "I wish I were as tall as you. I'd never carry those off."

Caroline turned and smiled at her. She's as insecure as I am, she thought, not a sex-goddess with bewitching powers.

"I'll take them," she said to the salesman.

As she stood at the counter, paying for the new shoes, she glanced back at her unknowing nemesis. A tall man walked up to Dana and handed her a Starbucks cup. The plot thickens, Caroline thought, now we have the fourth party in this love triangle. Or is it a love square? She put her Visa card back in her wallet and walked out of the shoe department without a backwards glance.

Winter warmed into spring and Caroline stopped checking to see if Walter had called. She was too busy preparing to present at a seminar in Toronto and shuttling Leah to Girl Scouts and ballet class. She went out a few times with a sweet orthodontist and found him insufferably dull. As the leaves bloomed on the trees, she methodically cleaned out her closets and sent the rejects to a women's shelter.

Keeping busy helped her not dwell on things.

One night, after Leah had gone to bed, Caroline sat at her desk in the living room, preparing her lecture for Monday. The doorbell rang and she looked up from her computer, startled.

No, it couldn't be. Things like that didn't happen in her world.

Caroline opened the front door and there he was, impossibly tall and imposing in his trench coat.

Walter smiled with uncharacteristic shyness and she opened the door wider.

She decided that perhaps happy endings were possible after all.

Caroline smiles at the woman standing in front of her, wondering if she'll remember their brief encounter three years before. She rises and kisses Dana's cheek. "It's so nice to meet you," she says. "I've heard so much about you I feel as if we've already met."

  
Under the white tent, Skinner dances with his new wife to "Unchained Melody". Sappy, he thinks, but that's just fine. Tonight he can be as sappy as he likes. It's his wedding night and he's allowed the indulgence.

Caroline smiles and rests her curly head on his shoulder and he pulls her closer, feeling her heart beating under the silk of her dress. He is having a hard time believing she belongs to him now, and he to her.

From the corner of his eye he spots Mulder and Scully dancing. He catches the flash of the sapphire and diamond earrings on Scully and hears her laughter. Tonight Scully's laughter only brings him gladness, gladness that he knew her and loved her.

Scully is a part of him, as is Sharon, but they are his past, adding richness and resonance to his life. His co-workers, friends and family are the present, surrounding him with their love. He kisses the top of his wife's head and moves with her to the music.

Caroline is the future.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Red Valerian_ was originally intended to be one simple erotic vignette, starring Scully and Skinner. My dear friend Red Valerian (hence the name of the series) had been gently nagging me for a while for some Skinnerotica, so I reluctantly sat down to write the piece as a present to one of the dearest women in the fanfiction community.
> 
> I happen to be one of those shipper types, so writing the piece turned out to be a revelation for me. Where before I could not in any way, shape or form see a romance between Scully and Skinner, I started to understand the circumstances that might bring those two together. That's the beauty of writing, it leads the writer to open to new possibilities.
> 
> After I posted the original story, I could not get the image out of my head of Skinner, months later, having a conversation with Mulder in his office. I began to be fascinated by the idea of a love triangle in the world of the X-Files, not a soap opera triangle of intrigue and recrimination, but a triangle between three intelligent, mature adults dealing with the very real issues of love, loss, desire and pain. Thus, one small vignette grew into a novel-length piece that took nearly five months to write, a story that ended up following the characters for almost four years of their lives.
> 
> Writing this series has been immensely rewarding and I must thank the wonderful people who patiently edited and shaped this work into something approaching readable: Alanna, Gwen, Plausible Deniability and Sharon.
> 
> This novel is dedicated to Red Valerian herself, for her boundless generosity and inspiration.


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